The NTEU bargaining team: Branch committee members Sam Green, Dr Andrew Broertjes, Dr Sanna Peden and Dr Stephen Dobbs with NTEU Industrial Officers Joe Fiala (in the middle) and Wayne Cupido (onscreen)
All in all we’re feeling fairly positive. The first order of business is to set up meeting protocols and schedules, and we made some good progress on that front. We are looking for a mutually acceptable way for the Union to provide bargaining-related information to all staff, and refining some points relating to the format of the meetings and the kind of information we would expect to receive from management to ensure productive discussions.
We remain in disagreement with management with regards to time release arrangements. Bargaining is an extremely labour-intensive process, and relevant backfill and workload adjustments will be necessary to make sure the staff reps’ workloads don’t balloon out of control and our work areas aren’t penalised for our participation in bargaining.
With the next bargaining meeting to take place in two weeks' time, your union bargaining team is optimistic that these arrangements will be finalised then.