What happened this week in bargaining?UQ Management Responses to Previously Tabled Claims Management responded to your request for better union rights. Yes, to transferring the 0.1FTE time release for the Branch President and the right to lease an office from the previous MOU into the Agreement. No to all your other claims like workload allocation for branch officials and delegates for all the work they do assisting staff with workplace issues, access for the union to staff inductions, codification of Workplace Rep rights and extending trade union training leave to all members. Management again rejected your proposed standalone provision in the enterprise agreement to regulate the implementation of Artificial Intelligence. They signalled that they may be willing to have a clause that refers to a governance framework for AI and we requested that they come back with what they're willing to put into the agreement. Management again rejected including an entitlement to any kind of sabbatical in the agreement. They did indicate that they may be willing to talk about strengthening protections for dedicated research time but that was probably a workloads issue. Management still haven't formulated a response to your claim for additional leave for people with, or caring for those with, chronic illness or disability. On a positive note, they did indicate that they were willing to consider a working party to look at putting your idea of a carers or disability passport into policy. Management stated that they have arranged a meeting with stakeholders at UQ College to discuss your proposal to have those employees covered by the agreement, but they couldn't say when that will take place. We have agreed to defer management’s response to your Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander claims until the first meeting in June in order to allow both the University and NTEU Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representatives to be present. Management Claim Possibly in response to our letter, management finally tabled a clause about one of their claims – changes to probation arrangements for commencing and returning staff. Their proposal removes restrictions around the length of probation, allowing a “maximum” of six months for all staff, other than continuing academics, which remain with 3 years probation. The current agreement prescribes shorter probationary periods for staff with contracts of less than one year and lower-level professional staff, and a prescribed probation period of 3 months. We gave them some frank feedback on the unintended consequences their proposal might have for the equitable application of probation periods at UQ and they said they would revise their proposal. Further NTEU Claims On casual academic claims, UQ management said they would consider your proposal that course coordinators be required to provide existing casual staff the reasons for not receiving further work or receiving reduced hours where they had previously taught a course. They again flat out rejected your claim for 17% superannuation for casuals. We received a positive initial response to your claim for the payment of penalties to casuals for working public holidays. However, following lengthy discussion, UQ management said they would need to provide a further response to your claims relating to flexible work arrangements and workload review procedures for professional staff once they had considered your claim more closely (despite having the detail for three weeks). We tabled clauses on fixed-term and casual conversion for professional employees to bring them in line with the Fair Work Act changes in these areas. Management will provide a response in due course.
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