Victoria University management has recently moved unilaterally increase workloads of all academic staff at Victoria University in the New Year.
It is surprising that this should occur when many people are only just returning from holidays and without warning.
The impact on students will be to decrease student consultation time and reduce support more generally for students in a range of areas such as assessment support because of less staff availability time.
With extra stress on the University this year because of campus closures at Melton and Sunbury and increased numbers of students at Footscray Park campus and St Albans campus, increasing staff workloads at this time is clearly unhelpful.
The increase on workload will also impact on community research work carried out by staff which is often is important for the Western region and Melbourne more generally.
A recent survey conducted by the NTEU indicates that over 63% of staff at Victoria University are working over 41 hours a week.
A website outlining some of the issues is available at www.vufacts.org.
Victoria University management has taken this action outside of the 2009 Enterprise Agreement with staff and any negotiative process with staff and has again shown it prefers an adversarial approach rather than an approach of working towards a positive solution for the community, students and staff.
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) has initiated disputes procedures against the University.
However, the adversarial way at Victoria University has become a monotonous part of life and despite 2010 being the last year of Vice Chancellor Elizabeth Harman’s tenure, she has shown that this path will continue at Victoria University as long as she remains at the helm.
This is disappointing.
Regards
Paul
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