La Trobe Uni staff fight for jobs after hundreds cut

La Trobe University staff are fighting their mates for the only jobs left after hundreds of redundancies “ripped the heart” out of the campus.

Victoria’s La Trobe campuses have been turned into “the Hunger Games” as staff are forced to compete with their colleagues for the dwindling number of positions.

More than 200 positions are under review in the university’s third round of job losses, after 300 staff took voluntary redundancies since 2020.

La Trobe said a change proposal meant that around 200 jobs would be made redundant, but the university was also creating 300 new roles.

Now staff are fighting each other for the few jobs left, according to Bendigo MP Lisa Chesters, with the university facing a $165 million budget blackhole as it restructures.

Supplied Editorial Federal Bendigo MP Lisa Chesters. Picture: Zizi Averill

“We have the facilities, we have the library, but not the staff,” she said.

The Bendigo campus recently opened a new library as part of a $50 million campus renewal.

Ms Chesters says the university should reconsider the cuts, and re-target the savings.

“It’s not a haircut … it’s like cutting vital organs from your body.”

Joel Blanch, 20, a student at the Bundoora campus, said he and fellow La Trobe students were worried the quality of their degrees was being devalued.

Mr Blanch said he had spoken with a dozen concerned staff over the past few months.

He said he had been told the cuts would be made to the arts, humanities and social sciences, as well as student and professional services.

La Trobe student Joel Blanch, 20, left Kyneton to study arts law at Bundoora.

The Bundoora arts law student said the redundancies were “spill and fill” as departments are cleared and staff are offered the limited positions left.

“It’s a horrible atmosphere in the university for both staff and students,” he said.

“Everyone is fighting each other.

“Everyone is scared to speak.”

Mr Blanch said it was part of a larger scaling back of staff across the university.

Mr Blanch said if the cuts were to student services it would hit some of the university’s most vulnerable, including welfare, mental health, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and International student services.

A La Trobe University spokeswoman said there was not an anticipated reduction in student services, with expansions to the Student Advising program to cover all degrees and campuses and additional counselling and wellbeing support staff.

“Ask La Trobe will continue to be the first point of contact for enquiries and if students require additional advice and support our team of International Advisors will assist,” she said.

The spokeswoman said the changes would retain the support for students, maintain the focus on education while not coming at the expense of research.

“While teaching and learning remain a core focus of our strategy, this is not at the expense of research, which will continue to be vital to La Trobe University,” she said.

But Mr Blanch said staff and students were told the job losses were part of the university's pivot to a teaching-focused model as revenues plummeted during the pandemic.

“It’s focusing more on keeping degrees alive,” Mr Blanch said.

“But if you’re not focusing on research your university will go downhill.

“Students are worried their degrees aren’t the same quality anymore.

“Making it a business model that the university calls sustainable and other people call soulless.” 

Supplied Editorial Bendigo La Trobe University campus. Picture: Zizi Averill

While Mr Blanch acknowledged Covid and the lack of JobKeeper assistance had hit the university hard, he said the cuts were extreme.

“This has gone way too far … it’s ripping the heart out of the university,” he said.

A La Trobe spokeswoman said the changes would make sure the university, including its regional campuses in Bendigo, Shepparton, Albury-Wodonga and Mildura, were in a strong position moving forward.

She said La Trobe faced a revenue shortfall of $165 million by 2022, largely attributed to the significant decline in international students.

“After direct appointments into new positions and expressions of interest, we estimate a loss of around 200 full time employees,” she said.

“Around 300 new roles are proposed, of which about a third are location-independent, it is not possible to confirm the exact number of staff redundancies, or at which campuses, until the recruitment process is complete.”

She said the Bundoora campus would likely be the most heavily impacted rather than the four regional campuses.

She said more professional positions were at risk than academic roles.

“No specific schools or departments have been ‘targeted’,” she said.

“Each school has undertaken strategic academic workforce planning to ensure the proposed workforce profile aligns with student load, the future teaching portfolio, research performance and graduate research supervisions, and the strategic priorities for the school.”