Leaked document exposes universities’ plan to drive down staff wages

A “strategy road map” by an association representing more than 32 institutions has been leaked, detailing “sneaky” tactics in a bid to drive down staff wages and conditions.

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) has hit out at the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association (AHEIA) this morning, revealing that the AHEIA’s leaked strategy road map shows it giving advice on how institutions can avoid being “roped in” to multi-employer bargaining.

The leaked AHEIA document suggests university managements should consider putting proposed pay offers directly to staff, without the backing of unions, and gives detailed advice on how to access an intractable bargaining declaration and arbitration.

NTEU general secretary Dr Damien Cahill said the leaked road map is “incontrovertible proof” that university managements “are using a concerted game plan to drive down wages and attack conditions”.

“Instead of negotiating with the NTEU in good faith, employers are more concerned with trying to ram through sub-standard agreements before multi-employer bargaining becomes more widely available,” he said.

“We’ve suspected this was the case, with managements around Australia upending bargaining to put agreements to staff without union endorsement. Now the truth has been exposed. We are seeing deliberate tactics to rush staff into accepting offers that don’t give them fair pay rises.”

Mr Cahill noted in light of the leaked document, the NTEU will continue its work in promoting fair pay rises and conditions for members.

“The ridiculous thing is, the NTEU has been quite open about enterprise bargaining remaining the primary way we will continue to negotiate with public universities,” he said.

“In this document, AHEIA explicitly nominates arbitration after achieving an intractable bargaining declaration as a path to ‘success’ in winding back clauses in agreements on key employment conditions like redundancies and staff reviews of management decisions.

“Public universities should not be handing out million-dollar salaries to vice-chancellors while engaging in a sneaky race to the bottom on staff pay and conditions. It doesn’t have to be this way. NTEU has reached agreements with employers at WSU, UTAS, ACU and QUT that deliver fair pay rises for staff and address job insecurity. We are close to reaching agreement with many other institutions.”

Mr Cahill added: “University managements who use this game plan are on notice. The NTEU will not be intimidated by attempts to circumvent the best interests of our members.

“We urge all managements to bargain in good faith with the NTEU to ensure we create better universities through investing in their most precious resource – staff.”

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) echoed a similar sentiment following confirmation of the document leak.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus said it was particularly concerning to see the document making reference to a presentation about the Albanese government’s workplace law reforms by Graeme Watson, who was senior industrial relations adviser to former Coalition minister Christian Porter.

“Christian Porter’s former senior IR advisor is effectively advising universities to pretend to bargain – to engage in bad faith bargaining as a means of gaming the system to keep wages low,” Ms McManus said.

“Good faith bargaining is a requirement under law, and I doubt anyone will look kindly upon any employer who adopts strategies to avoid it.

“The advice he provides is out of step with the direction the country is moving in, including the expectation that employers adopt a more mature and realistic approach to bargaining. 

“Strategies designed to game the system to remove workers’ rights and deny fair pay increases are a recipe for conflict and very unlikely to succeed.”

News of the leaked document comes not long after a University of Queensland (UQ) strike in late February, which challenged management to reach a new enterprise agreement.

The strike represented the third industrial action from UQ in 600 days.