UTS NTEU members agree to new staff agreement

Bipasha Chakraborty

Members of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) have unanimously agreed to supporting a new staff agreement that will improve working rights and conditions.

Following a presentation from the UTS NTEU bargaining team last Thursday, NTEU members “endorsed the in-principle new staff agreement,” said UTS Branch Director Dr Sarah Attfield.

The new agreement will improve job security for casual staff members. Advocating for 110 new permanent jobs for current casuals, better conversion pathways for staff and avenues to job security after two years for professional staff.

be made redundant following the transition, however Honi has not yet seen documents from the most recent version of the plan.

Submissions to University management from impacted staff were included in the draft change plan. One staff member reported “With the high turnover of [UniLodge] staff, this causes issues with operational knowledge and poor student experience for the residents”

Another submission reported “the new possible options does not consider the loss of expertise that would result from losing 12 permanent University staff positions, which includes staff members that have many years of experience and expertise running Student Accommodation operations at The University of Sydney”

A University of Sydney spokesperson told Honi, “Any staff whose roles are made redundant will be priority assessed for new roles in the new structure.”

Jordan Anderson, Student Accomodation Officer at the SRC, stated “it does not surprise me in the slightest that USyd management have decided to outsource their day-to-day operation of student accommodation to UniLodge in their extremely transparent endeavours to prioritise profits over the livelihoods of struggling students. This follows management selling off millions of accomodation in the context of the most dire housing and cost of living crisis, where students are struggling to make ends meet while attempting to balance the load of full-time Uni.”

In 2021, former student residential assistants at the University of Canberra launched a class action lawsuit against UniLodge and partnered universities (including the University of Sydney) for alleged wage theft. At the time, Rahul Bedi, a senior associate of Adero Law, the firm leading the case, said “These kinds of class actions are deeply concerning when a university seeks to wash its hand entirely of systemic exploitation in their

The bargaining team were also able to gain a 4.5% pay rise in 2022, ten days of paid domestic violence leave, academic freedom and freedom of expression, and workload protections for both casual and professional staff.

Members had agreed on twenty days gender affirmation leave per year for trans and gender-diverse staff, an employment target of three per cent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff, paid language allowances and an increase from five to ten days of paid cultural leave.

Dr Attfield commented, “The bargaining team are very pleased with this outcome — it has been a very long process and we took industrial action twice last year, but we’ve ended up with an excellent draft agreement that will deliver major improvements to the working conditions of academic and professional staff at UTS. I’d suggest that some of the new clauses can be described as ‘sector leading’.”

Before gaining approval from the Fair Work Commission, the agreement will first be placed to an all-staff vote.

“I’m confident that UTS staff will vote to approve the agreement when the vote is opened by the University, and once it’s all been processed, the NTEU branch will start the work of making sure the new clauses are implemented!”