bargaining outcomes for women
Photo: Jess Cronin
bargaining
michelle rangott mrangott@nteu.org.au
Summarising the outcomes for women from the latest round of bargaining in universities is not a simple ‘tick a box’ exercise. Looking at clauses from Agreements and summarising content only tells part of the story; it is also about how these arrangements are promoted and supported at each institution, and recognising that workplace provisions can have direct and indirect consequences for women. While NTEU can quite rightly celebrate the landmark provisions in our Agreements, we must also recognise that we can do more to improve working conditions and career opportunities for women.
Background to our claims The Union’s Women’s Action Committee and previous Women’s Conferences were active in the preparation and the pursuit of claims for our last round of enterprise bargaining. This included campaigning for improvements in the following areas: • Continued improvements to parental leave provisions, in particular improved primary carer’s leave arrangements so that leave could be shared between both parents. • Improvements to carer’s leave. • Right to request flexible work arrangements.
Parental Leave NTEU continues to achieve ground-breaking entitlements in relation to parental leave entitlements: • An overwhelming minimum standard of 26 weeks paid parental leave. • 10 universities providing at least 36 weeks paid parental leave. Of these 10 universities, Monash and Victoria Univer-
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VOLUME 19 SEPTEMBER 2011
sity (VU) provide the highest standard in the country of 36.8 weeks paid parental leave. • There can be great flexibility in the return to work benefits offered as part of the overall parental leave payment for parents returning to work, including access to professional development, funding for childcare and funding reduced working hours. Important gains have also been made in the recognition of paid primary carer leave entitlements (as opposed to paid maternity leave solely for the birth mother). The Australian Catholic University (ACU) and the University of Western Australia (UWA) currently set the benchmark for paid primary carer leave entitlements in the country with the ACU Enterprise Agreement enabling female and male employees who are primary carers of a newborn child to take 40 weeks leave paid at 60% of their ordinary wage, with the birth mother entitled to an additional 12 weeks paid leave. UWA provides 36 weeks paid parental leave and allows this leave to be taken by the staff member who is a primary care giver. Of the remaining universities, seventeen institutions allow either all or some of the full parental leave entitlement to be shared between parents where both parents are employed at the same institution.
Carer’s Leave & Flexibility In recognising the reality that there are many staff who have caring responsibilities for children, aging parents, partners and other dependants, the Union developed a range of claims to improve both the stand-alone entitlement to carer’s leave and the need for greater rights to flexible work arrangements. In assessing the outcomes from this round of bargaining, it remains the case that we have not achieved a common standard or a prevailing model, with some Agreements unfortunately continuing to cap and restrict the amount of leave that can be used specifically for caring purposes. Therefore, whilst we have won improvements to carer’s leave entitlements in many of our Agreements, it is clear that we must continue to campaign strongly on this issue. Equally, the Union will need to continue to press for improved rights to request flexible working arrangements and to hold employers to a high standard when responding to such requests. Some innovative provisions have been negotiated, such as the VU model which specifies the criteria that must be used when assessing a request by an employee for flexible work arrangements.
The Future Over many bargaining rounds, NTEU has been able to build on our achievements in bargaining through strong local and national campaigns conducted by NTEU women activists. By continuing to build and support these networks, we will be well placed to develop innovative claims and achieve real workplace reform for women workers. Michelle Rangott is an NTEU Industrial Officer.