The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) will fight plans, announced yesterday, to make over 100 staff redundant at Macquarie University.
Macquarie University management have announced around 100 redundancies across three Faculties – Science & Engineering, Macquarie Business School and Medicine, Health and Human Sciences. A further round of redundancies is planned for Professional Staff later this year.
Associate Professor Nikki Balnave, President of the NTEU Macquarie Uni Branch, said, "The redundancies will have a devastating effect on the University that has already suffered huge staff losses. Three hundred of our Macquarie Uni colleagues have already lost their jobs in the last year. This does not include the hidden workforce of casuals and fixed term employees, hundreds of whom have not been re-engaged in 2021."
"We know that finances are tight for universities, but the answer is not to gut the workforce and delete courses – STEM included.. Universities are crucial to the response and recovery from COVID, yet the federal government seems intent on starving them of funding. Now, more than ever, we need universities to work on new vaccines and teach the next generation of nurses, doctors, pandemic specialists and scientists," she continued.
Michael Thomson, Secretary of the NTEU NSW said, "These cuts are brutal and unnecessary. They will damage Macquarie University and destroy people's lives and careers. We call on the University management to sit down and negotiate with the Union over alternative measures. If the management doesn't have the decency to negotiate, then we will fight these callous job cuts."
