NTEU Members' Meeting 6 November 2008

NTEU Members' Meeting 6 November 2008
Members attending the meeting at Footscray Park on 6 November 2008 passed the following motions unanimously;

Motion 1
That this meeting notes with anger and dismay:
1) the University management’s determination to see through the largest redundancy program in Australian university history.
2) that the redundancies, combined with course cutbacks, campus closures, car-parking changes, and management’s failure to enter seriously into a Collective Bargaining Agreement with its staff, have done great harm to the University’s reputation. They will do even greater harm to its reputation in the months to come.
3) for the University management’s failure to manage the University’s resources in a way that could avoid this scale of trauma. Senior management should be held accountable. We note that no senior managers will take a pay-cut, much less a job-cut, for their ineptitude. What is more, we remain profoundly skeptical about management’s motives in launching this program of redundancies.

Motion 2
That this meeting reaffirms the five motions passed unanimously by 350 VU staff at a meeting on 21 October 2008. In particular, we reaffirm our commitment to taking industrial action in pursuit of a Collective Agreement that would protect VU staff against such mistreatment by management in the future, should that be necessary.

Motion 3
That this meeting endorses the Union’s recommendation to pursue disputes over section 65 ‘Organisational Change’ of the current Enterprise Agreement. We shall take up these disputes ourselves, and we call on our colleagues also to take up these disputes.

Motion 4
That this meeting endorses the Union’s community campaign of engaging local politicians, media, and others with the scale of management failure of this crucial community asset for Melbourne’s greater western region.