Divide and conquer: how thriving Melbourne Uni short-changed its staff

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Talk of mass sackings, grand bargains and insecure employment might make it seem like the University of Melbourne is short on money. It’s not.

And, she wonders, why is an institution that relies equally on its academic and administrative staff trying to play one side off against the other?exercise going on,” said Brocklesby, a marketing and communications manager at the University of Melbourne. “The expectation that you can’t complain because you’re so lucky to be here.feel really lucky, we all feel that, and I think that gets abused,” she said.

The program, deployed between July 2013 and February 2015, involved a complete overhaul of the university’s administration, which management viewed as “inefficient”. Over 500 administrative staff were sacked, with many more having to re-apply for their jobs, often at a lower pay grade. Five hundred administrative staff would be sacked, but academic staff would have access to resources other Australian universities could only dream of.

Senior management considered BIP a huge success. The program produced $80 million in savings during its first full year, a figure that has continued to grow. But several staff interviewed for this story argue that the program only worked by forcing academics to handle the administrative minutiae previously handled by dedicated employees.

There were obvious advantages for the university in splitting the EBA. It would mean halving the bargaining power of each group, and doubling the work of the union bargaining team. Most importantly though, and especially after BIP’s grand bargain, it would again drive a wedge between the academic and administrative employees.The two draft agreements featured small but important differences.

 

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On BIP, I co-wrote a story on this for FarragoMagazine in 2014. There was staff outcry at the time, including from academic staff who stood in solidarity with professional colleagues. Here's the link for anyone interested:

Feudalism making a comeback.

daveyk317 The BIP process Melb Uni did was shite for most of the staff... Whole depts support staff walked...

Here's a REALLY good way to raise wages and give 'employment security,' as well as restore our nation to what it's supposed to be: - Stop women from working, unless absolutely necessary. - Remove every single individual who is not ethnically European. Easy.

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