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Higher Education
Freedom to Be Robbed
29 September 2003
Paid maternity leave, superannuation contributions and many other rights are threatened under the Abott and Nelson new funding requirements, writes Suzanne Hammond, CPSU-SPSF Federal Women's Industrial Officer.
Tony Abbott and Brendan Nelson's new requirements for Universities will rob women who work in universities of many of their rights.
The Ministers use word such as `freedom' and `flexibility' to enter AWAs or individual contracts but all these requirements do is allow workers to be robbed of hard one entitlements.
The new strings attached to university funding require that universities progressively displace all previous agreements and relevant awards, that institutions `offer' individual arrangements, remove restrictions on casual employment, remove and reduce penalty and overtime time rates and reduce workers rights to proper representation in disputes and on committees.
All workers are under threat and women workers stand to lose many of their rights.
Women are a high proportion of general staff at universities and through industrial campaigns they have achieved entitlements greater than those covered by the Workplace Relations Act and most awards.
The policy is to leave workers with bare minimum rights. Entitlements achieved in such areas as paid maternity, parental leave, employer superannuation contributions, rights to proper grievance and dismissal procedures and protections for part-time and casual workers will be eroded under these new requirements.
Women who work in the sector, through their union, have achieved greater paid maternity leave entitlements, higher employers superannuation contributions, greater access and entitlements for part-time and casual workers than workers in many other sectors where women work.
Freedom comes in the form of many workers having no choice than to accept an individual contract with little protection and entitlements and flexibility comes in the form of management having complete discretion in how hours are worked and who works them.
We face a casual workforce with poorer pay and little or no entitlements.
Instead of allowing university managers and unions to negotiate conditions between themselves the new requirements dictate to the universities how they should run their industrial relations the Howard Government way.
The Nelson agenda is not about reform, freedom and flexibility but is about inequality in education for students and their families and about taking rights away from workers in the sector.
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