VC's View
Although it probably does not seem that long, the University's Enterprise Agreement is now 18 months old, having been ratified by the Industrial Relations Commission on December 3, 1996. The life of the agreement is nominally two years and the University has recently written to the unions indicating its wish to commence discussions on a new round of enterprise bargaining next month. The previous enterprise bargaining agreement was just squeezed through under the previous industrial relations legislation. The 1998 round of negotiations will be in accordance with the provisions of the Commonwealth Workplace Relations Act. This will mean some significant changes, particularly as a result of the new requirement that any agreement must be approved by a valid majority of employees, whether they are members of a trade union or not. In practice this will mean a vote. Negotiations with the unions having coverage on campus will remain the principal bargaining forum but this requirement means that consultations through meetings of staff consultative committees and faculties will also be significant. The new round of bargaining commences in a climate very different from that in which the 1995 round was launched. Although negotiations were at their peak at the time when the education minister in the previous Labor government, Simon Crean, shocked the higher education sector by announcing that operating grants would not be supplemented to cover university salary increases, there remained a widespread belief that this decision would be short-lived. There was also a reluctance to accept that there were no 'hollow logs' to cover salary increases not funded by the government. History has demonstrated that there were no hollow logs and funding pressures have increased. As a result, salary increases have had to be funded by the only other means available in the short term - reduced activity and reduced staff numbers. University management does not want this to happen again. We remain determined to convince the Commonwealth government, whether Coalition or Labor, of the risks to the continuing social and economic betterment of Australian society of reducing university operating grants. However, until that message is heard, there is an imperative that we go to the bargaining table recognising it would be folly to make agreements in anticipation of any change in government attitude. In this climate, the University's Strategic Directions statement will become a key negotiating document. Preparation of the statement is commencing in tandem with the conclusion of a consultative process. While the details of the statement are still to be finalised, it will come as no surprise that two key foci will be means of developing and maintaining excellence in research and teaching, and increasing non-operating grant income from government and non-government sources. It will also come as no surprise that these elements are necessarily interlinked. University management will go to the bargaining table with both a menu of change to facilitate achievement of strategic directions and a willingness to entertain proposals that are consistent with those ends. The negotiations will have to centre on proposals which are revenue-neutral or which link improved salary and conditions with increased external earnings. The latter is not a new concept for Australian universities - the University of Melbourne's 1997 enterprise agreement having made salary increases dependent upon attainment by the University of productivity goals (read external income goals) drawn from its strategic and operational plans. Both the Strategic Directions statement and enterprise bargaining will emphasise that this university - more than any other in Australia - faces a stark choice. Continuation of the present trend of decline in the share of Government funding going to block funding of research and teaching would inevitably squeeze this University into becoming a lesser presence in the higher education sector if it chose to pursue an uncompromising focus on internally-driven block funded intellectual activity. The alternative open to the ANU community is to fully support the continuing development of the University as a growing entity extending its core basic research and teaching excellence into activities designed to meet the knowledge-based needs of business, government and the community. Deane Terrell