The University of New England branch of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) will meet today to discuss further industrial action after more than a week of strikes during enterprise bargaining negotiations.
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From Thursday September 19 to Friday September 27, NTEU members banned online tutorials, electronic systems to record student attendance and assessment results, or responding to student emails and learning forum posts.
The bone of contention is UNE management's proposal to adopt an hours-based academic workload model, used at nearly all other Australian universities. They believe this model will ensure fairness and transparency for staff, and a sustainable future for the university.
NTEU members, however, consider this proposal "a radical gutting of the current provisions for regulating academic workloads". They worry that management would increase academic workloads to unsustainable levels, resulting in academics burning out or losing their jobs.
Vice-chancellor Brigid Heywood believes the ban on online activity unfairly targets online students, depriving them of access to full academic support and teacher feedback for assessments.
"Our online students are often the most isolated, often making financial and family sacrifices to accommodate study, and are the most disrupted by the sudden withdrawal of support," she wrote in a communique to staff.
The university has granted students a seven working day extension for assignments due between September 11 and October 4, and established a central hub to deal with student enquiries.
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Background
UNE's current academic workload model is calculated using Equivalent Full-Time Student Loads (EFTSL), equivalent to a full-time student's study load for a year.
This model was devised when most teaching was face-to-face; now that 80 per cent of students are online, management consider this model inefficient and inequitable, a UNE spokesperson said. They say there is no correlation under this model between allocated workload and actual work performed.
The university wants to move to an hours-based model, used by 35 of 37 Australian public universities.
"When similar models were implemented in other universities, it was with the agreement of the NTEU and its members via enterprise bargaining negotiations," the UNE spokesperson said.
NTEU members at UNE, however, argue the proposed changes to the academic workload model are radical, inequitable, and non-transparent. They believe the proposal would significantly diminish enforceable protections around academic workloads, allowing the university to increase the overall and average load while trying to hide that increase under another model.
"Management's radical proposal in our view will make individual workloads governed potentially by capricious and opaque managerial prerogative," NTEU wrote in June.
The university laid out its model when this round of Enterprise Bargaining began two years ago; their position is unchanged, a UNE spokesperson said.
"The University," Professor Heywood said in her communique, "indicated over two years ago its desires to refresh and renew our workload model to achieve greater fairness and equity across the workplace, better balance, WHS needs and secure options for greater innovation and creativity in our educational offerings with a view to securing competitiveness, growth & revenue diversity.
"Given this, the ongoing reluctance of the local NTEU branch executive to consider a full hours-based workload model is a matter of great concern."
UNE management pointed to a 2017 UNE survey showing most staff were dissatisfied with the EFTSL model; only 17 per cent of staff agreed it accurately reflected the teaching load.
NTEU members argue that the survey showed staff dissatisfaction with the EFTSL model - but not, however, support for another (hours-based) model. They also claim UNE did not ask staff whether they wanted teaching loads changed, or about excessive hours of work.
Professor Heywood said in her communique that the NTEU representative body "offered no viable alternate to the proposals put forward from the outset by the University".
NTEU, in response, said they provided in November 2018 a settlement package that made significant concessions in academic workloads, but that UNE management "rejected totally" their claims, as well as existing EFTSL caps on teaching, and collegiality, equity, and transparency provisions.
The union also said it presented a reworking of the current workloads clause in September, with concessions including an hours basis for calculating loads; an EFTSL cap; and conceding teaching-focused positions for coveted casuals. They also said they proposed transparent transparent open bargaining sessions, which management rejected.
For the 14th year in a row, UNE has earned the top five-star rating from the Good Universities Guide for the quality of its student experience - a record unmatched by any other Australian public university.