The National Tertiary Education has today condemned the latest pay offer from University of Newcastle management as a massive cut to the real wages of university staff.
The NTEU and Uni management have been in negotiations for a new enterprise agreement for almost 12 months. Yesterday Uni management announced a pay offer totalling just 6% over more than three years.
Dan Conway, NTEU Branch President said:
“Management’s offer is insulting to hard-working Newcastle Uni staff. Their offer of 6% over more than three years doesn’t even match the inflation rate for the current year.
“Over the life of the enterprise agreement it equates to less than 2% per annum. In the current inflationary environment, that’s a huge real wage cut. And this coming from a management that sacked hundreds of staff over the last two years.
“Earlier this year Newcastle Uni announced a record surplus of $185 million. The Uni can clearly afford a proper pay rise as well as deliver on job security and safe and healthy workloads.”
Dr Damien Cahill, NTEU NSW Secretary said:
“Newcastle University management need to get serious about investing in their staff. It was the hard work of University staff that got the University through the worst days of the pandemic.
“It is university staff who are now shouldering the extra work resulting from hundreds of their colleagues being callously sacked. And you can’t expect a quality student experience without giving uni staff a pay rise that keeps pace with the cost of living and without fixing the crisis of insecure employment and chronic overwork.”