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Episode 16: In which the university continues to advocate for wage theft.
201 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, Kate & Tony give an update on the Fair Work Commission case, on Monash's rejection of our attempts to eliminate wage theft by fixing teaching classifications, and on the state of negotiations around leave provisions.
If you have questions about the process you'd like answered, or any topics you would like to hear covered on the podcast, drop us an email at myunionwroteaneba@gmail.com
You can also stay up to date with everything happening with bargaining at our new bargaining website, and with the branch on Facebook and Twitter. All of which can be found here - https://linktr.ee/myunionwroteaneba
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Transcript
Introduction to Enterprise Bargaining
00:00:18
Speaker
G'day, everyone, and welcome to My Union Road and EBA. This is a podcast to chronicle the progress towards a new enterprise bargaining agreement at Monash University and is brought to you by members of the Monash branch of the NTEU. We're here to take the old agreement and hashtag change it. And unlike our namesake, my dad wrote a porno, do everything we can to avoid being fucked in the process. Those involved with the podcast would like to acknowledge that it is being recorded on the unsaid lands of the Kulin nations,
00:00:47
Speaker
on whose lands we live, teach, and work. We would like to acknowledge and pay our respects to the traditional custodians and elders past and present, and to the continuation of the cultural, spiritual, and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Leadership Changes at Monash
00:01:03
Speaker
Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.
00:01:08
Speaker
Dear listeners, it has been 380 days since the last agreement expired, or roughly 7 dog years if you're a dog. Since my last update, our Vice-Chancellor has taken a massive pay cut as she becomes the next Governor at Victoria. With the University recently losing their appeal to withhold millions in wages owing to teaching staff, the Vice-Chancellor has decided to flee with what's left of her reputation.
00:01:33
Speaker
The Governor role means that Margaret Gardner will no longer have to look at another poor person again, as she will lean more into her favourite pastime of playing sycophant to politicians and being an armchair progressive. To our former Vice-Chancellor, we say farewell to you and the legacy of shiny buildings, waste theft and a governance structure that mirrors the feudal system that you have left behind.
Expired Agreement and Negotiation Stalemate
00:01:56
Speaker
Hi everyone, this week we just wanted to start by acknowledging
00:02:00
Speaker
but definitely not celebrating the one year anniversary of the expiry of our EA. As of the day we're recording this, it's been 12 and a half months since the EA at Monash expired, which means that it's 15 and a half months since we should have started bargaining. That's because there's a clause in the expired agreement that says that negotiations are to begin no later than three months before the expiry of the agreement.
00:02:26
Speaker
But if nothing else, that certainly set the tone of what was to come in EA negotiations. Because of how long it took the uni to get its act together and come to the table, we won't pass the 12-month mark for bargaining until October.
Fair Work Commission and Appeals
00:02:40
Speaker
In other words, we could have been seven months ahead of where we are now had they begun when they should have. We could have been finished.
00:02:47
Speaker
But because of the lack of respect they have for us as staff, we're still here, slogging through meeting after meeting where they rebuff our attempts to make this place a better place for us all, staff and students alike. And to have this institution live up to the ideals that it says it stands for. For a university that's invested so much into the tagline of hashtag change it, they sure do seem to hate attempts to do that closest to home.
00:03:15
Speaker
So this week, we're going to give updates on a few different things. First, an update on the Fair Work Commission case on casual consults. Then we're going to have a chat about management's rejection of our attempts to address wage theft. And we'll finish out with an overview of where we're at with leave entitlements.
Casual Academic Work Rate Disputes
00:03:33
Speaker
All right. So first up is the Fair Work update. As you might remember from the last episode, the commissioner at the Fair Work Commission that heard Monash's application to vary our expired agreement found in our favour.
00:03:46
Speaker
He ruled that although there was ambiguity in the clause, he was not going to accept Monash's proposed rewording of it, which was great for us because the rewording that had been proposed was ridiculous. After that verdict was handed down, the university had 21 days within which to appeal. And late in the afternoon of day 21, that's exactly what they did. This was obviously disappointing for us. We'd much rather have the university right the wrong
00:04:14
Speaker
rather than try to gaslight us into believing that no wrong existed in the first place. So what that means for us now is that having appealed the decision from Deputy President Bell, it will go to a full bench hearing where two or three commissioners will hear the case and have an opportunity to overturn DP Bell's original decision. In the upcoming weeks, the expensive lawyers hired by the university will make their submission detailing why they think DP Bell's decision was wrong
00:04:42
Speaker
then the union and our ace barrister Siobhan and recent podcast Jacob will have an opportunity to respond. The hearing is scheduled for the 22nd of August so we'll update you further then and if it's in person we'll all organise a delegation of members to shop and make our presence felt.
Teaching Activity Redefinition Issues
00:04:58
Speaker
All right, up next, our proposed rewriting of schedules two and three of the ABA. First, a little bit of important context for people that aren't so in the weeds with enterprise agreements or our enterprise agreement. Schedule two sets out the rates of pay for casual academic staff and schedule three defines the different kinds of work that incur those different rates of pay.
00:05:21
Speaker
This is the part of the agreement that arguably contains the most potential for wage theft to occur, and it's here where the issues around the first wage theft case, where Monash had to repay $8.6 million in stolen wages, originated. We want to overhaul these schedules. Our position is that there should be three different classifications for teaching-related activities. Lectures, tutorials, and other duties, what's known as other required academic activity, or ORAA.
00:05:50
Speaker
And the university's response essentially was a big fat no. The university completely rejected our proposal to rewrite casual teaching definitions to ensure that all casual academics receive associated time, including preparation time, for their teaching, regardless of whether it's considered a tutorial, a workshop, a lab, or a seminar.
00:06:10
Speaker
Remember, we're proposing this to try and end wage theft because the university has been systematically redefining teaching activities, especially in STEM faculties. Doing things like changing tutorials to workshops and practicals to pay staff lower hourly rates, even when the amount of work that is needed for the teaching of those classes has not changed. Most recently, they've completely removed tutorials from the faculty of IT so they can pay staff at the lower rate
00:06:40
Speaker
and halved the amount of prep and reduced marking allocations for students. It's not good. And solidarity to our members in IT and any other faculties where that's happening as well. So management's position is that it gets to define teaching activities. Monash HR were quite adamant that for STEM teachers in particular, little preparation for classwork is required, which we know and you know is absolute bullshit.
00:07:10
Speaker
Needless to say, no one on the university side of the table has ever actually taught a class at this university.
Marking Conditions and Piece Rates
00:07:17
Speaker
The university also firmly rebuffed our claim for better marking conditions. They're happy with the current processes, which sees deans determine a piece rate for marking assessment, even though they admitted there's actually no consultation process or way for staff to make submissions to such determinations.
00:07:36
Speaker
This is particularly frustrating for academic staff. There are vanishingly few times when you can actually do the marking in the time that is assigned. In arts, according to the Dean's determination, you only get paid for 3,750 words per hour. So if you're marking a 2,000 word research essay, you've got 32 minutes.
00:07:58
Speaker
That's to download and open it, read, understand and assess the argument that is being made by the student, evaluate the sources that they have drawn from, including the citations themselves and the bibliography, neither of which are included in that 2000 word word count.
00:08:15
Speaker
Check the turner in report, fill in the rubric, formulate and write the feedback for the student, then save and re-upload the mark to Moodle. It's virtually impossible to do that in 32 minutes, even in the best of circumstances. And the university knows it. That's why when this was raised, they recoiled at the cost implications of a shift to all hours paid for all hours worked.
00:08:38
Speaker
If they were confident that Deim's determinations accurately reflected the time it took to do the work, there would be no cost implications.
Preparation Time and Misclassification Concerns
00:08:46
Speaker
And isn't the way that marking is paid essentially piece rates? Isn't Melbourne University being investigated by the Fair Work Ombudsman for exactly the same thing?
00:08:54
Speaker
They are. The Fair Work Ombudsman commenced federal court action against them in February. According to the press release, the Ombudsman alleges that Melbourne University breached the Fair Work Act when it failed to pay casual academics for all hours of marking
00:09:09
Speaker
work at the hourly rate required under its enterprise agreement. Instead, it paid them based on quote benchmarks that varied depending on the school or faculty. And in some cases described payment for the marking at a rate based on 4000 words per hour and at one school, one hour per student. Sound familiar?
00:09:30
Speaker
Anyway, the only thing that the university really wants to change is the definition of contemporaneous, the same issue that we are at the Fair Work Commission and soon the federal court about. Here, they are arguing that contemporaneous consultation should mean seven days before or after a relevant lecture or tutorial. In other words, having failed to get this changed at the Fair Work Commission, they now want to make it the status quo. Suffice to say, we have no interest in signing on to wage theft, so that one's going to be a hard no from us.
00:10:00
Speaker
The whole thing really just underscores just how out of touch the decision makers at this university are. When our institutions are in the news cycle almost weekly for stealing wages from insecurely employed staff, for Monash to insist that there are no structural problems is absolutely galling.
00:10:18
Speaker
And needless to say, the university and union are quite a way apart when it comes to teaching definitions. Our proposal would require the university to give all casual academics appropriate preparation time for the classes they teach and to pay them for all hours worked.
Fair Pay for All Hours Worked
00:10:33
Speaker
The university's point of view simply entrenches misclassification, exploitation and ultimately wage theft. Look, all hours paid for all hours work is not and should not be a radical claim.
00:10:45
Speaker
Anything less than that is just plain and simple wage theft. Regardless of whether it's workloads for ongoing staff or marking rates for casual academic staff, we should be paid for the work that we do. And the fact that the university doesn't agree with that says quite a lot about their position.
Leave Entitlements Debate
00:11:02
Speaker
All right, finally, we have an update on the discussions around leave that have happened so far. We've had a couple of emails about the status of these, so thank you to those who have reached out. Remember, if there are things that you want to know or want us to cover, please don't hesitate to shoot us an email at myunionrodeneba.com. There are a few different kinds of leave, and some of the discussions are at different stages, so we're going to go through them one by one. So the first one is gender affirmation leave.
00:11:32
Speaker
There's a basic agreement here between the union and the university on the need for gender affirmation leave to be included in the agreement. So that's a really good start. There is a catch though. We are arguing for 30 days annually, but the university is so far holding fast at 30 days total for their total employment per person. It's unclear why the university is stuck on this number. Other universities have signed off on 30 days annually in the annual agreements, but so far they are sticking to it. So hopefully that will change.
00:12:03
Speaker
The second is vaccination leave. Here the university just says no. It's almost like while we've all been doing it tough through COVID, all they did was stay at home and cut jobs while ignoring the reality of the situation for ordinary workers. This one should be a no brainer, but instead they're showing that they just have no brains.
00:12:24
Speaker
And then the next one is parental leave. And this one is split into two parts, leave for the birthing parent and the non birthing parent. And this one is a little bit trickier and wordy, so bear with me on that one. So parental leave for the birthing parent, the 2019 agreement, the expired one that we're still under, sets out the following. Staff members being birth mothers, having continuous service for at least 24 months,
00:12:50
Speaker
are entitled to leave for a continuous period of up to 52 weeks, comprising of 14 weeks at 100% pay to conclude no later than 14 weeks following the date of delivery and 38 weeks at 60% pay. Those employed for more than 12 months but less than 24 months are entitled to leave for a continuous period of up to 52 weeks, comprising 14 weeks leave at 100% pay to conclude no later than 14 weeks following the date of delivery
00:13:21
Speaker
and leave at 60% pay at the rate of 3.16 weeks for each completed month of service after the first 12 months, plus unplayed leave for any remainder of the continuous 52-week period. And finally, if you're still with me, if you've been around for less than 12 months, you're entitled to leave for a continuous period of up to 52 weeks, and that's to conclude no later than 52 weeks following the date of delivery.
00:13:49
Speaker
comprising of leave at 100% pay at the rate of 1.16 weeks for each completed month of service, and again that's to conclude no later than 14 weeks following the date of delivery, plus unplayed leave for the remainder of the continuous 52 week period.
Superannuation and Long Service Leave
00:14:08
Speaker
So essentially the biggest change that we've been pushing for here is that super should continue to be paid on unpaid leave. It's really well established that the absence of this super over this time has a significant impact on the amount of super that is accrued over the course of someone's working life. And that this disadvantage is overwhelmingly felt by women. The university has flatly refused to address this.
00:14:36
Speaker
The other side of this is obviously the parental leave entitlements of the non-birthing parent. This is somewhere where the university has historically done quite poorly, so much so that it identified its own shortcomings in this area more than half a decade ago, while still advocating for its own sub-pass status quo.
00:14:55
Speaker
Here, as with some of the other leave categories, there is still ongoing discussion and nothing has been fully settled. The union proposed 12 weeks paid leave for the non-birthing parent to be taken within two years of the birth of the child. The university has come back to us with their proposal of nine weeks to be taken within two years. In terms of the latter part of that, the leave need
00:15:20
Speaker
that the leave need only be taken within the two years. That's a win. That will allow a great deal more flexibility in terms of how parents want to arrange their respective leaves to best suit their circumstances and lives. On the flip side of that, though, the nine weeks is better than what it was. And it's something that we will continue to try and push them on and to try and get a better deal.
00:15:43
Speaker
So the next type of leave is paid sick leave for casuals. So essentially the union wants casuals to have paid sick leave.
00:15:51
Speaker
which casuals at the University of Sydney have recently had enshrined in their enterprise agreement. Monash is saying a flat out no to this, which makes sense if you care about profits and minimizing the quote unquote liabilities that they owe to their staff. But makes no sense if you have a shred of compassion, especially when again, COVID is still a real and pressing issue, particularly for staff who are immunocompromised or who have frequent contact with someone who is and don't want to be responsible for passing on to them.
00:16:18
Speaker
Even outside of a pandemic context, if casual staff are sick, they shouldn't have to choose between a paycheck that they may be in desperate need of and their health. The last category of leave is long service leave. And oh boy, this is a doozy. So Monash has a frankly, really bizarre stance on this. So since negotiating the last enterprise agreement, the 2019 agreement,
00:16:48
Speaker
where it was negotiated that staff can access long service leave after 10 years of continuous service. Victorian legislation has changed. And now, employees can access long service leave after 70 years of continuous employment. Government legislation obviously trumps any enterprise agreement, and you can't just change or ignore a law by putting it in an AA.
00:17:09
Speaker
If you could, the university would never commit wage theft, it would just jam it all into the agreements.
Impact of Leave Policies on Retention
00:17:15
Speaker
Despite this, in the current negotiations, we tabled a clause to bring the agreement in line with the new seven-year standard, but the university is insisting that it remains at 10 years, even though our proposal mirrors the legislative requirement.
00:17:32
Speaker
I don't know why this is. No one seems to know why this is, but they are like a dog with a bone in this and they seem to literally think that they are above the law. And that really just shows that this isn't a rational, logical argument between two parties who might want slightly different things as well. Since being involved in the union, it's really, you know, I've really seen how
00:17:57
Speaker
Bizarre and out of touch. Some of these arguments that are having, you know, you wouldn't think you'd need to have an argument about this in EA negotiations, but here we are. And really, leave entitlement are one of the core components of any agreement and in many ways form the backbone of the conditions that staff have. So how does the university expect to attract and keep the kinds of staff it needs and wants if it is so far behind and unwilling to offer best in sector conditions?
Union Strategy and Open Day Discussion
00:18:26
Speaker
Hopefully they start to see the light and agree to the proposals that we've put forward. Fingers crossed. We can only hope. And protest. And protest. And make our voices heard and our feelings felt.
00:18:39
Speaker
Absolutely. Speaking of, before we sign off for this week, we want to remind everyone about the all members meeting on Wednesday, the 19th of July at 12 PM. In that meeting, we'll be giving a full update on the status of bargaining across the whole range of our claims, as well as best discussing how to ramp up the pressure on management and to push them to come to the table with some substantive offers. So please do register to attend.
00:19:09
Speaker
The other important thing that we'll be talking about and going through will be our plans for Open Day and what we'll be doing on Open Day. So, yeah, please come along. Yeah, if you want to see some change and some movement on these issues, absolutely come along and come say hi to Tony and I. And as always, if you have any questions, please just shoot us an email at myunionroadoneva.com.
00:19:34
Speaker
Alright folks, that's it for this episode. Thanks to Kate, Danny, Adam, Bernard, and Pod Daddy Sofio for all the work they've put into this, and we'll catch you next time.