Griffith University abandons negotiations with staff in attempt for late-year approval for substandard Enterprise Agreements

National Tertiary Education Union

National Tertiary Education Union members at Griffith University will hold a stop work rally on Monday December 5 at 1pm.

The action is in response to Griffith management walking away from negotiations with staff representatives and deciding to proceed with a non-union ballot on proposed Enterprise Agreements.

The rally will take place at 1pm at the Bray Centre, Nathan Campus, Griffith University.

The agreements offered by Griffith Management do little to reduce workloads or tackle the problem of excessive casualisation of the workforce, and underpayments of casual workers.

The seven-day access period in which staff can inspect the proposed agreements started on December 1. Griffith has given staff just two business days of voting - Friday December 9 and Monday December 12.

Quotes attributable to NTEU Griffith Acting Branch President, Adam Stodden.

"The pay offer currently from management still looks like it will leave staff at Griffith with a real wage cut.

"Management is offering $1000 to every worker if the Agreement is voted up, but workers I have spoken to see it for what it is: a sugar hit and a bribe."

"But it doesn't matter what the pay rise is if workloads keep going up, and staff continue to suffer from unsafe workloads.

"We just want them to come back to the table and negotiate a fair deal with the Union."

Quote attributable to NTEU Queensland Secretary, Michael McNally:

"Reducing the minimum payment for tutorials and lectures to just the hour of delivery is going to lead to more wage theft. Griffith management is basically requiring casual staff to negotiate how much time they get for preparation, student consultation and marking. We can't see casuals arguing with their supervisors for more hours. These 'negotiations' tend to be "take it or leave it" and will lead to more wage theft.

"Griffith claims they are 'fixing' professional staff workloads by hiring 25 staff over the next two years. That figure is an absolute joke for an organisation as big as Griffith and won't replace the hundreds of staff lost to redundancies in the past two years.

"They are rushing this through at the end of the year when a lot of people are on holidays and a lot of casuals who are being dudded in this deal aren't working so may not get to vote.

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