Reference no: EM133306000

Case Study: Aussie University and the NUTW Aussie University is a large university in one of Australia's major capital cities. University management and the National Union of Tertiary Workers (NUTW) commenced bargaining for a new Enterprise Agreement in May 2021. Nine months later, little progress had been made. Both parties were unwilling to shift from their initial positions laid out in their log of claims, and negotiations were adversarial. Members of the NUTW had taken protected industrial action in the form of a 24-hour strike in November 2021, but this did little to progress the negotiations. In February 2022, Aussie University and the NUTW made a joint application to the Fair Work Commission (FWC) for intervention in their negotiations for an Enterprise Agreement. The FWC accepted the application and Commissioner Pitt began facilitating negotiations by encouraging the parties to take a "problem-solving" approach. Some trust was built between the parties as they shared information and began identifying common interests and possible solutions. Given that negotiations had previously stalled, Commissioner Pitt adopted a "building block" approach, working with the parties on less controversial or complex issues before moving on to the more challenging matters. While there was some agreement in the initial stages, there were three sticking points that the parties could not reach agreement on -job security, workload and pay. As with the rest of the tertiary education sector, Aussie University had been financially impacted by the downturn in international student enrolments due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This had led to many staff, both academic and professional, being made redundant. Staff that remained were faced with additional teaching and administrative responsibilities and felt that now the financial impact of the pandemic on the University was easing, their efforts should be recognised and rewarded accordingly, and that their workloads should be reduced to safer levels.

Aussie University presented an "ability to pay" argument to justify their position of offering a pay rise no greater than 2% which was not well received by the Union, particularly as the cost of living was rising. The University argued that to offer greater than a 2% pay rise would result in further redundancies. While staff understood the need to reduce labour costs early in the pandemic, they felt that management was now using Covid-19 to justify unrelated cost-cutting and work intensification measures. In the context of threats to job insecurity, work intensification and a low pay offer, negotiations broke down again in July 2022 and further protected industrial action was taken by the Union. Commissioner Pitt subsequently stepped back from the facilitation as the parties appeared to prefer a more position-based, adverarial approach to resolving these challenging issues rather than involving the FWC. Negotiations continue with agreement unlikely anytime soon.

Question:

• What forms of enterprise bargaining were used during negotiations between Aussie University and the NUTW? Explain.
• What does the case reveal about the difficulty in reaching agreement in an adversarial context? Do you believe Commissioner Pitt should have stepped back from facilitating the negotiations when he did? Why/why not?
• Pay and job security were two of the most challenging issues for the parties to reach agreement on. What does the case demonstrate about the relationship between these issues in negotiations?
• Why would it be difficult to find common ground between the parties on the issue of workload? ls workload a Work Health & Safety issue for unions? Explain.