Workers at five major universities have voted to strike over pay deal

University staff from across Victoria have vowed to strike again over an ongoing dispute about pay and job insecurity. Read the latest.

University staff have vowed to walk off the job again this year if their pay and working condition demands are not met by June 30.

About 1200 university workers held stop work meetings on Wednesday to attend a major rally in Melbourne, where they chanted for a better deal from their employers.

Regional campuses, including La Trobe University Bendigo, were among those impacted by the stop work.

Deakin University, Federation University, Monash University and Melbourne University and La Trobe are all involved in the action.

University staff rallied at the Victorian Trades Hall on April 3 over pay and conditions. Picture: supplied.

Victorian division secretary Sarah Roberts, of the National Tertiary Education Union, said six months of negotiations over the latest enterprise agreement with La Trobe Bendigo had been fruitless.

At some universities that period had dragged on even longer.

“Despite all Victorian university agreements now having expired between six and 20 months ago no new agreements have yet been struck,” she said.

“Members have been left without a real payrise and no end in sight to churning redundancies, job insecurity and unfair working hours.”

Union members at the rally voted unanimously to take statewide strike action, unless every university had an agreement in place by June 30.

“By law Victorian NTEU members are entitled to good faith bargaining for job security, better working hours and a payrise to offset the rapidly increasing cost of living,” said Ms Roberts as she moved the vote at the rally.

“But instead of rapidly moving to agreements with the union to deliver these benefits, vice-chancellors are pocketing million-dollar salaries, investing in buildings and announcing huge post-pandemic profits.”

Among the concerns were the use of casual and fixed-term employment for staff rather than permanent employment, Ms Roberts said.

“Victorian universities are operating upon an insecure workforce model with five out of eight universities having a majority of their workforce in casual and fixed-term employment,” she said.

“Ongoing work is regularly insecure with long serving workers subject to rolling contracts.”

Sarah Roberts, Victorian Division Secretary of the National Tertiary Education Union.

A spokeswoman for La Trobe University said the institution had been negotiating in good faith over the enterprise agreement since November 2022.

“We have been making good progress on a range of clauses,” she said.

“Our aim is to provide improved salaries, increased job security and other benefits to our staff as soon as possible.”

However, Ms Roberts said staff at La Trobe Bendigo were especially concerned about job redundancies, as they would not be able to pick up new jobs without relocating or leaving the sector.

“It does have a bigger impact on the regional areas compared to the metro campuses,” she said.

“Metro areas will have multiple universities where they can apply work, where as in the regions, there is often only one.

“Insecure employment allows wage theft to flourish. Four Victorian universities are among the worst culprits.”

The Victorian industrial action follows large university strikes in the UK and US this year, with many of the claims about pay and working conditions echoing the Victorian sentiments.

University of Michigan graduate workers demanded a living wage and were supported by students who said they were showing up in solidarity at a strike last month.

In the UK, nurses, teachers, civil servants, ambulance workers and security officers have either been on strike already this year or flagged intentions to strike within weeks.