National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) members will protest alongside community members in Ballarat on Saturday to fight for better pay and conditions at Federation University.
NTEU members will rally alongside local supporters outside the Post Office Gallery on Lydiard Street from midday on Saturday.
FedUni NTEU members have unanimously endorsed escalating their enterprise bargaining campaign in response to management’s latest pay offer.
A week of strike action earlier this month persuaded management to improve the original pay offer but the latest proposal is well below agreements at other universities around Australia.
Management has offered FedUni staff just 2.55% per annum.
“All we are asking for is a fair wage increase and decent conditions,” said Dr Mathew Abbott, President of the NTEU Branch at FedUni.
“Our counter-proposal is for a 3.5% increase, which is quite conservative given inflation is running at about double that.
“But this is about more than pay: it’s about standing up to a university executive that has lost its way, and which has been cutting away the very fabric of our university, causing students to choose other institutions.”
NTEU members will be joined by Australian Workers’ Union members and other supporters.
Staff and community leaders will detail how staff are standing up to create a better university despite the mismanagement of FedUni’s senior executive.
The protest is the first in a series of actions FedUni NTEU members resolved to carry out at a meeting last week.
If management does not come to the table with a fair offer, members will engage in escalating strike action in the first weeks of Semester Two, followed by further protests at FedUni’s Open Day events in August.
