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Episode Two: A Tale of Two Logs w/Ben Eltham
270 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, Kate & Tony go through the key points in the Universities Log of Claims to see what it is that management wants out of negotiations (spoiler alert: it's light on details!).
We then have a chat with Monash Branch President Ben Eltham about the NTEUs Log of Claims, and the branch came to decide on what would go into it.
If you have questions about the process you'd like answered, drop us an email at myunionwroteaneba@gmail.com
You can stay up to date with everything happening with bargaining and at the branch by following us on social media:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/NTEUMonashBranch
Twitter - https://mobile.twitter.com/nteumonash
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Transcript
Introduction to Monash EBA Journey
00:00:12
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.
00:00:35
Speaker
Those involved with the podcast would like to acknowledge that it is being recorded on the unceded lands of the Kulin nations, 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. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.
139 Days Without Agreement: Financial Implications
00:01:02
Speaker
We're going to start today with a new segment called Bargain Watch.
00:01:05
Speaker
This is how we'll open each episode from here on out, and Adam will be your guide. So without further ado, here he is. Good evening, everyone. My name is Adam Fernandes, and I'm a professional staff member at Monash University. I also happen to be one of your National Councillors at the Monash branch. A quick update on a bargain watch, and it has been 139 days since our last agreement expired. And in that time, our Vice-Chancellor has earned over 430 grand.
00:01:34
Speaker
That's half a house in Melbourne or a few smashed avocados on toast in Brunswick. But tell us, dear listeners, what would you do if you made over 400 grand in 139 days? Thanks for listening. Bye. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the second episode of the podcast.
Management Claims on Job Security
00:01:52
Speaker
Today, Tony and I thought we could give everyone a bit of an overview of management's log of claims and compare it to the union's log of claims.
00:02:00
Speaker
and to also explain what exactly a log of claims is and how we came to have ours. At its most basic, a log of claims is exactly what it sounds like. It's a document that each side of the negotiations presents to the other that sets out what they want to get out of the bargaining process, what they want to see in the agreement when it is made from their side. Sometimes these can be quite detailed and specific. Others, like the ones that we were presented with from the uni, yeah, not so much.
00:02:29
Speaker
There really isn't much to talk about in management's log of clients, as it's a pretty vague document. But there are three things we want to highlight and give some more context on. The first is the section on job security. Now, there is one thing that we need to clarify upfront here, some jargon that we have to work through.
00:02:45
Speaker
the difference between fixed term and periodic employment. Fixed term employment can be either full time or fractional, can be professional teaching or research based, and lasts for a set amount of time, either until a set date or until the completion of a specified project or purpose. Periodic employment is sort of a subset of fixed term. It is only for academic staff, is teaching based and covers only teaching periods, either one or more of those periods.
Analysis of Job Security Proposals
00:03:13
Speaker
It also cannot be full-time, only fractional with a minimum of a 0.3 FTE, full-time equivalent. The important thing about this is that it is distinct from ongoing employment, which is, as the name suggests, ongoing and not subject to constant renewal.
00:03:31
Speaker
All right, now with that out of the way, back to their way for log of claims, where in the job security section, they say that they are seeking quote, to introduce new academic employment categories and revise existing clauses to expand and facilitate the adoption of more secure employment options.
00:03:49
Speaker
They have three points here. The first is varying and introducing new fixed term categories of employment in order to encourage greater utilization of fixed term employment in place of casual and sessional employment where viable. And that has three sort of important aspects to it.
00:04:05
Speaker
One, new fixed term categories means that they are still trying to dodge making people ongoing and are just looking to rebadge casual without meaningfully addressing the lack of job security that comes with those jobs. Second, it sounds a lot like all of these new categories are just going to be contortions so as to give as little as possible in terms of benefits. And then third, that we're viable at the end just gives them an out from doing anything. They can simply claim it isn't viable to sort of escape hatch, if you will.
00:04:34
Speaker
The second point that they have in their log for job security is, quote, revising the existing periodic academic employment clause to expand eligibility and provide more options for continuing and fixed term employment for sessional staff, which just again sounds like a massive cop out and that they want to whack a fresh coat of paint and a new name onto sessional and casual employment and pretend they've fixed the problem.
00:04:59
Speaker
And then the third point is about in court introducing periodic PhD employment in order to provide a more secure employment option for Monash PhD candidates, which is essentially DOA because none of the parties that would be impacted by that other than the university think it's a good idea. The university also knows that's the case, not academic staff, not the union, and most importantly, not the PhD candidates themselves are interested in that change.
00:05:26
Speaker
Yeah, definitely not. The second thing we want to mention from the management's log of claims is pay rises.
Vague Pay Rise Proposals and Financial Growth
00:05:34
Speaker
And I quote it from them, as a priority, Monash is seeking to offer our staff fair, responsible, and sustainable salary increases. But they haven't mentioned any figures in their log of claims, and they've also refused to provide any numbers in initial bargaining meetings as well. So even though this kind of sounds quite nice, there isn't really very much backing that up.
00:05:55
Speaker
And often the reason for this hesitancy to give numbers for salary increases is said to be because the university doesn't know whether it will be able to afford to give these pay rises to its staff in its budget. But this claim loses a bit of legitimacy when Monash's assets have increased a whopping 45% since 2018, which I might add was the largest increase of any of the major universities in Australia in that time period.
00:06:23
Speaker
And that's not to mention the 66 million they just dropped on the former Toyota research facility on Blackburn Road. Yeah, for sure. All right.
Expanding Working Hours: Necessary or Not?
00:06:31
Speaker
The third thing that they flag in their log of claims is the span of hours for professional staff. This is one where the uni really tries to make itself look like it's doing all professional staff are solid. What they want to do in essence is expand what are known as ordinary hours, which are the hours that don't attract overtime rates if you work.
00:06:50
Speaker
So currently those hours are 8 a.m. till 6 p.m. The university wants to change those hours to 7 a.m. till 8 p.m. so as to cover more than half the day. They say this will do three things. The first, provide an equitable span of hours for all professional staff, which actually just means that they will be able to force more professional staff to work at weird hours of the day. Second, allow the university to have greater operational flexibility to ensure it can meet the changing needs of students
00:07:19
Speaker
of which I think the first half is very honest. They very much do want the greater operational flexibility. It doesn't have anything to do with students. That's just disingenuous nonsense. No students need services at 7am or 8pm. That's just not the case. And third, to also provide more flexibility to staff to work at different times of the day, which is actually something that professional staff can already do if they want. They just have to request it.
00:07:47
Speaker
So I'm not sure what the point of that one is. Awesome. So we could talk about the other things we'd like to see in management's log of claims all day. But for the sake of not making this an hours long podcast, we will leave it there for today. And we'll talk about more specific points as they come up in the process of bargaining.
Ben Eltham: Role and Contributions
00:08:05
Speaker
For now, I think it's time to introduce our guest who will talk us through the union's log of claims.
00:08:10
Speaker
And I guess to do that today is the branch president, Ben Eltham. Ben, do you want to introduce yourself and give a bit of a rundown of who you are and where you can be found and all that kind of thing? Yeah, sure thing. So my name is Ben Eltham, and I'm the branch president here at the NTU at Monash. I've been the branch president for about three years now, and I'm a lecturer in the School of Media, Film and Journalism.
00:08:34
Speaker
So I've been a full-time academic at Monash University for about five years now. Before that, I was teaching and researching at Deakin Uni. So I've been involved with the NTU for a number of years and seem to be getting more and more involved as time goes on. Great. Thanks very much for coming and talking to us today. So Ben, can you give us a quick explanation of how the branch came to decide on the log of claims before we get into the meat of what's actually in the log itself?
00:09:04
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, the short answer is we asked the members.
Union's Log of Claims: Key Issues
00:09:08
Speaker
So we ran a really extensive survey earlier this year where we went out to the membership and we asked them, you know, what is it that you want in the new enterprise agreement? What is it that you see as the most important issues for you and your workplace?
00:09:23
Speaker
I think we had more than a thousand responses back from that survey. So we feel like it was maybe not statistically significant, but certainly a good number of responses. And the responses are really interesting, actually. So we've got a bit of a gauge on how people felt about their workplace.
00:09:41
Speaker
We picked up widespread disillusionment, I think, with the university's working conditions and really what a lot of staff see is the university losing its way, that the university is not really living up to the kind of noble sentiments of its mission statement and its strategic plan and the day-to-day working conditions on campus.
00:10:05
Speaker
are in fact a lot bleaker, a lot more insecure than certainly the university claims they are and obviously what people would like. So in terms of what people told us were the big issues, number one was workloads.
00:10:21
Speaker
particularly for, or both for academics and professional staff. So, you know, the workloads are just very high at Monash University. People feel that they have a lot of work to do. There's too much work to do in the time that they have to do it. And a lot of people are working unpaid hours, hundreds of unpaid hours a year in the case of many workers.
00:10:42
Speaker
So that was the number one issue. The number two issue was wage theft. And I guess that's not a surprise to anyone who's been following the news. Wage theft in Australia universities is rampant. Monash University itself has admitted to at least $8.6 million of wage theft from casual academics over a six-year period from 2014 to 2020. And the union is currently suing Monash University and the federal court for a further tranche of wage theft.
00:11:10
Speaker
So yeah, no surprises I think that people at this university are deeply concerned about the unlawful withholding of employee entitlements.
00:11:20
Speaker
And really, there was a bunch of other issues in the survey that boiled down to insecurity, to insecure working conditions, to the difficulty that people find with getting a good, secure, proper job. And that covers so many different issues at this university from casual staff, of course, who are truly insecure, genuinely don't know whether they'll be working from week to week.
00:11:46
Speaker
fixed-term staff. You know, we have people at this university who are on rolling contracts and have been on rolling contracts for 20 years. Imagine being on rolling fixed-term contracts for the time it takes for your kids to grow up and leave school. That's the situation that some of the workforce at Monash University face. So, you know, long-term, widespread workplace insecurity, I think,
00:12:14
Speaker
massive issue at this university. So those are the top three issues. And what we then did was we got together with our industrial officers, with the branch committee, and we tried to work out what are the priorities for a better workplace. And that's really where the lot of claims comes from. It's a reform agenda, essentially, to try and make for a better place, a better university.
00:12:38
Speaker
So it's really good to see the Monash union members are both working together to inform our log of claims. So how does this discussion translate into specific things that we're asking for? Can you give us an overview of the claim points in the union's log of claims? Yeah, well, I'm glad you asked, Kate. So I mean, the short answer is we talk to the members, we sit down with the industrial team, and we come up with a document for how we want a better work place.
Union's Stance on Workloads and Overtime
00:13:05
Speaker
So a good example in the log of claims
00:13:07
Speaker
You know, number one point is workloads, as I said, because that was the biggest issue that members told us about. So our number one point is we want protections against higher workloads. You know, we want improved protections against excessive or uncompensated overtime. We want to make sure that the span of hours for professional staff stays at eight till six. So these are all dot points in the workloads heading of our log of claims document.
00:13:36
Speaker
Great. And can members get access to that as well? Yep. We've emailed everybody out that document and it also sits somewhere other on the NTU website. So yeah, that's also available for anyone who wants to have a look. Yeah, great. And we'll see if we can put that in the podcast
Job Security and Flexibility Claims
00:13:52
Speaker
description or something as well.
00:13:54
Speaker
Yeah, good one. So Worklives is just one of the things we've got in there. We've got a very big client for job security. We want to make sure that people have protections against restructures. So one of the things we're saying is
00:14:09
Speaker
that any particular staff member at Monash University will not be subject to more than one organisational change during the life of the enterprise agreement. That voluntary retrenchment will only occur when the work performed in the position is no longer required. So no sham redundancies. We want a right to conversion for people on fixed terms. So after three years of continuous service or two successive contracts, you're automatically converted to ongoing. That's great.
00:14:37
Speaker
Stuff like that is so important and that would protect people who are on these rolling contracts and actually give them an ongoing job. We want flexibilities. We want working from home and the right for remote work.
00:14:51
Speaker
One of the things that's interesting, I think, that we're looking at is a right to disconnect. Essentially, the right to free time after you finish, right? So that you're not having to answer emails at 10pm, you know? I mean, for casual stuff, it's even worse. They're answering emails all night. They're not even getting paid for it. It's about a better workplace, basically. It's about a reform of the way we do things.
00:15:15
Speaker
And obviously the university isn't just going to straight away and straight up agree to all of the things that we're asking. Can you give sort of members a sense, I guess, for like how much they can reasonably expect to get out of the log of claims at the end of the day?
Importance of All Claims in Negotiation
00:15:32
Speaker
Well, I want it all. They're all important claims. Our members have fought really hard for the right to negotiate these claims. I'm not unilaterally conceding on any of the issues in our log of claims before the negotiations progress. It's up to the University to engage with the union in good faith and to actually negotiate on this stuff.
00:15:54
Speaker
If they don't want to do it, they should give us some good reasons, you know. We know it's not money because they're rolling in dough, and I've just got a $416 million operating surplus in 2021. So the argument that they can't afford any of these, that argument is not going to wash with members.
00:16:11
Speaker
So my view is that actually all of these changes are possible, they're affordable, and they'll actually make for a better university. If management was serious about all of the lovely glossy documents they put out and all of their ambitions for 2030 and beyond, then they'd be sitting down to work with the union and their own staff to deliver these logo claims because it would actually help them deliver on these strategic goals that they've set for themselves.
00:16:37
Speaker
So thank you so much, Ben, for that and giving us a lowdown in the log of claims.
Upcoming Union Event and Member Engagement
00:16:42
Speaker
And yeah, I totally agree. I think that if we fight really hard, we can get these things through. So on that note, on Thursday, the 24th of November from 8 30 to 12, the union is going to have some coffee stalls, both at the Clayton and Corfield campuses.
00:16:57
Speaker
So we'll just be hanging out, giving out free coffee, some free merch, all that kind of stuff, and chatting all things union and enterprise bargaining. So keep an eye out on social media for more info and come and say hi. And again, thanks so much, Ben, for dropping by and giving us a little rundown of the union's log of claims.
00:17:16
Speaker
Yeah, thanks, guys. I'm loving the podcast so far. And yeah, we'll be around on the 24th. So hopefully I can sit down and have a coffee with some people and hear about their stories. You know, we are basically only as strong as our membership. If we want to work together, we can actually affect, you know, a significant change in our workplace. So I'm actually really excited about the period coming. It's going to be a long, hot summer. I'm really happy we'll get some some wins on the negotiating table.
Episode Conclusion and Contact Information
00:17:44
Speaker
Awesome. Thanks, Ben. And as always, if you've got any questions about bargaining or the process at all, shoot us an email at myunionrodeneba at gmail.com and we'll get one of our members to respond to your question. See you all next week. All right, folks, that's it for this episode. Thanks to Kate, Danny, Adam, Bernard and Pod Daddy Sophia for all the work they've put into this. And we'll catch you next time.