In an embarrassing backdown, RMIT University has withdrawn a proposed enterprise agreement two days into a staff ballot to approve it. The agreement would have covered teachers in RMIT’s vocational education (VE) business, formerly RMIT TAFE.

“RMIT have tried every trick in the book to lock in substandard wages and conditions for teachers, including a new one: cancelling a ballot in the middle of the vote!”, said RMIT NTEU branch president Melissa Slee. “This was a spectacular mistake.” 

The university was asking workers to approve an agreement that was worse than one that had been thrashed in a non-union ballot less than 12 months ago. As if to punish staff for voting down the earlier agreement, the recently withdrawn deal had a lower pay offer and dictated that teachers “shall not unreasonably refuse” to teach hours in excess of the existing 21-hour cap.

The agreement also sought to curtail union representation, removing the Australian Education Union and the National Tertiary Education Union as parties. Negotiators for the AEU backed the deal and now share in some of the embarrassment following the university’s decision to pull out of the ballot.

Olga Lorenza, a teacher and NTEU member, explained the impact that the AEU’s approach to bargaining has had on staff: “To watch as one of the two unions representing teachers at RMIT – the AEU – sides with management instead of with another union, the NTEU, has been very confronting and confusing for some teachers”.

The AEU’s first priority, Olga explained, was to line up all Victorian TAFEs on a new multi-business agreement. In the aftermath of major cuts to TAFE funding by the last two state governments, this translates into the AEU endeavouring to hold down the pay and conditions of employees at institutions like RMIT – despite its 2014 profit of $71.2 million.

“They have to keep our pay and conditions at RMIT on a par with what those struggling TAFEs will be able to afford”, Olga told Red Flag, “but this is a ridiculous strategy that comes from the AEU headquarters and doesn’t prioritise RMIT members.

“RMIT’s profits have surged in the last few years, while TAFEs across the state have suffered. We’re just not in the same position. Management can afford, for instance, to pay us the same super as they give everyone else in vocational education – librarians, IT staff, admin people.”

Over the last 12 months, the AEU has been bleeding RMIT vocational education members to the NTEU. Previously, by mutual agreement, RMIT TAFE teachers were covered only by the AEU, the NTEU never attempting to recruit there.

But the shift from TAFE to RMIT VE made the teachers direct employees of the university, and the behaviour of the AEU officials forced the hands of rank and file AEU members. Last year, upon their own initiative, the entire AEU RMIT VE sub-branch committee defected to the NTEU. Dozens more members followed in their wake. As it stands, the two unions are now roughly the same size, but the NTEU is growing rapidly while the AEU shrinks.

When the now withdrawn agreement was put to ballot, it was left to the NTEU members alone to run the “vote no” campaign, and to force management into its humiliating back down.

The confident and organised teachers are now well placed to fight on for a new agreement, as Melissa Slee explained: “Last week they [the university] finally coughed up a long overdue administrative pay rise. Teachers in response unanimously supported a vote of no-confidence and launched an industrial campaign”.

“Teachers are very switched on, and I think their confidence is growing. This is a really inspiring campaign”, she said.

Olga agrees: “They just tell us bluntly that teachers are not worth it … [but] we will win because unfairness and disrespect are never winning strategies in the long run”.