At least nine New Zealanders have joined a global boycott of Elsevier, the world’s largest scientific journal publisher. The protest has rapidly gained momentum since it began as an irate blog post at the end of January. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education by Tuesday evening, about 2,400 scholars had put their names to an online pledge not to publish or do any editorial work for the company’s journals, including refereeing papers. Protesters accuse Elsevier of charging too much and supporting laws that will keep research findings bottled up behind a company pay-wall.

Employees of the universities of Auckland, Lincoln and Otago have signed the pledge as well as one staff member at NIWA.

Brett S. Abrahams, an assistant professor of genetics at the USA’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine, told the Chronicle, “The government pays me and other scientists to produce work, and we give it away to private entities. Then they charge us to read it.” Mr Abrahams signed the pledge on Tuesday after reading about it on Facebook.

According to the boycotters, Elsevier, which publishes over 2,000 journals including the prestigious Cell and The Lancet, is abusing academic researchers in three areas. First there are the prices. Then the company bundles subscriptions to lesser journals together with valuable ones, forcing libraries to spend money buying things they do not want in order to get a few things they do want. And, most recently, Elsevier has supported a proposed US law that could prevent agencies like the US National Institutes of Health from making all articles written by grant recipients freely available.

However Elsevier rejects the complaints saying, globally, the amount of research that is published is going up every year but library budgets are not keeping pace.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. WITT gains from PTE closure
2. TEU negotiates improved Canterbury timetable
3. University of Auckland pushes Teach First
4. Student loan debtors escape on OE

Other news

Wintec settled a collective agreement with its academic staff late last year. NorthTec is now the only one of the old ITP MECA polytechnics not to settle a collective agreement with its staff. NorthTec wants an employment agreement which allows it to direct staff to work any days, evenings and weekends. Tutors have not had a pay increase since November 2008.

“The government should be focusing on creating jobs and getting money into the pockets of low and middle income people by stimulating the economy rather than an inflexible deficit target,” says CTU Economist Bill Rosenberg. “We have had over 150,000 unemployed and 250,000 jobless almost constantly now since mid 2009. The unemployment rate at 6.6 percent is barely below its financial crisis peak in December 2009.” – CTU

Lower Hutt is in danger of losing its last provider of adult community night classes. Hutt City Workers’ Education Association (WEA) president Maurice Payes confirms a funding squeeze has forced the group to lay off its two part-time workers, who are owed wages. Four Lower Hutt colleges abandoned running adult community courses in 2010 when the National Government cut $13 million out of the $16m annual Adult Community Education (ACE) budget. That left the WEA as the last provider – Hutt News

United States President Obama brought his campaign for college affordability to an audience of Michigan college students last week, pledging that his administration would be “putting colleges on notice” over rising costs and issuing a call for continued public support for higher education by states so that the USA does not become a nation where education is reserved for the well-to-do – Chronicle of Higher Education 

NorthTec is currently trying to cut working conditions and extend teaching hours for its staff, when most other polytechnics around the country have come to amicable settlements with their staff in the last two months.

NorthTec, one of only two remaining ex-MECA ITPs yet to settle with its TEU staff members, is seeking to remove all limits on timetabled teaching hours and maximum number of teaching days from staff working conditions, as well as reducing leave for new staff, so they can teach more.

NorthTec CEO Paul Binney told TEU negotiators that getting fewer staff doing more work wasn’t immediately underpinning his employment offer, but he added:

“Let’s not duck that topic. That has to be an objective going forward. We need to be more productive and efficient so need to do more for less.”

This has led to the situation where TEU members at NorthTec today begin a ballot for industrial action, at the same time that TEU members elsewhere around the country are holding ratification ballots.

“Given the settled environment elsewhere, we anticipate a concentrated effort at NorthTec next year”, said Organiser Chan Dixon, “although their employer’s unreasonable position is hardly the ‘ho ho ho’ that TEU members at NorthTec want as they head towards the summer break, especially after more than three years without an increase to their salary.”

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Threatened boycott on advertised jobs at VUW
2. Student loan statistics get worse
3. OECD says invest in education to end inequality
4. Charter schools an unpleasant surprise
5. Have your say on Tertiary Update next year

Other news

Tertiary Education Union UCOL branch president Tina Smith voices her support for locked-out CMP workers at a protest near a McDonald’s outlet, in Palmerston North – Photo in the Manawatu Standard

Lincoln University has closed two buildings after a detailed engineering inspection. Vice-chancellor Roger Field said today the Hilgendorf Wing (including the TEU office) and the Student Union building would be shut until further notice – The Press

The University of Canterbury will rely on its implicit Government guarantee to meet payments to investors on its unrated 10-year bonds after the earthquakes scared off students – TVNZ

New Zealand has really done little more than keep up with inflation until the last three years when expenditure has started to increase, but even now we are probably still at 60 to 70 percent of what appears to be an international consensus on the appropriate level of public expenditure  committed to research by other small advanced nations. There is evidence that private sector spending only starts to increase when a critical mass of activity flows from the public sector – Sir Peter Gluckman, the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor.

Many workers with caring responsibilities want flexible working arrangements and/or part-time hours. But there is no evidence to suggest these workers want casual work. Research suggests they are forced to accept casual work or other types of insecure work because they are unable to access quality on-going part-time work – The University of South Australia and the Workplace Research Centre debunk five myths about insecure work.

TEU members at Unitec finally have a collective agreement again, after nearly a year on individual employment agreements. Members at Unitec voted to ratify their new collective last Friday.

“This is now the second collective agreement that TEU has settled coming out of the old ITP MECA that dissolved in December last year,” said national industrial officer Irena Brorens. “The settlement includes a salary increase and also makes some changes to leave and duty hours.”

“The settlement means members are finally covered again by a collective agreement and are getting a salary increase which, apart from a one off payment of $750, they have not had since 2009.”

The salary increase is 2 percent for November 2011 and 2 percent for November 2012, plus a 2 percent lump sum payment (in lieu of back pay as the collective agreement ended in December 2010).

The changes to discretionary leave will be compensated for with 2 percent on the annual salary for each week that is converted to professional development institutional leave. This change will be phased in during 2012 and 2013. All new staff will have their salaries increased by 8 percent to reflect the changes.

“This is a good outcome for current members and also for recruiting of new employees,” said Ms Brorens, “because we will finally have transparency about what the salaries are for new staff and there will be a collective agreement for them to join.”

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. General staff negotiations meander along at Auckland University
2. Conference speaks up for public education
3. Draper re-elected as vice-president
4. Corruption scandal rocks University of Queensland
5. Gareth Morgan challenges UnionAID

Other news

“For students at universities and polytechnics, we’re encouraging them to cast an advance vote if they’re not sure they can make it to a polling booth on the day. Many of them are still on campus at the moment but might be moving back home or going on holiday.” Advance polling booths have been set up at Otago, Auckland and Massey Universities to encourage students to vote before their exams end and they leave for the summer, Mr Do said – Dominion Post

Student demand for financial assistance and food bank services has soared in Dunedin, with welfare schemes run by student associations at the university and polytechnic being pushed past their financial limits – Otago Daily Times

Many British lecturers who are ‘working to contract’ over a pensions dispute are finding that they suddenly have time for themselves, their families and their colleagues. 40,000 members of the University and College Union (UCU) in 67 universities, has been “working to contract” since 10 October in a dispute over changes to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) pensions – The Guardian

Otago Polytechnic is setting up a new campus in Auckland’s Queen St next year to target the international student market. A report to Otago Polytechnic council members highlighted how 80 percent of New Zealand’s international students were attracted to Auckland - Otago Daily Times

The on-going saga around the ITP multi-employer collective agreement will head to court one more time.

TEU has applied to the Employment Court claiming it should not be required to continue to bargain with the six ex-ITP MECA employers (WITT, Bay of Plenty Polytechnic, Unitec, NorthTec, Whitireia and Wintec) for a new multi-employer agreement because its members have already voted in a ballot that they don’t want such an agreement. In response, the six employers claim that TEU has illegally cross-initiated for six collective employment agreements, one at each of the institutions.

The Employment Relations Authority determined yesterday that the matter should proceed straight to the court, rather than being heard by the authority first.

The ITP MECA has been in turmoil for two years now while employers have tried to remove core conditions from union members. Union members have resisted these attempts but have missed pay rises and the chance to negotiate a timely agreement because of the employers’ intransigence.

TEU members told Tertiary Update that they are astounded that these employers are continuing to push for a multi-employer collective agreement that nobody wants, and that they, the staff, just want to get on with negotiating a collective agreement at their own workplaces.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Canterbury staff should be excused from PBRF
2. Auckland VC’s refusal to negotiate leads to PBRF strike
3. No place for would-be Otago students
4. Women’s Day highlights growing pay gap
5. TEU tells govt it needs to change its policy
6. Trade ministry too busy to answer questions

Other news

“This is a dispute that need not happen, should not happen. It baffles me, and I know it baffles people at all levels in the university as to why the CEO has taken this confrontational route. I hope, and so does the university community as a whole, that common sense prevails and we move on to the real challenges facing our university - Dr Haworth’s opinion piece in this morning’s New Zealand Herald.

The University of Canterbury believes it has lost only a few hundred enrolments as a result of last month’s earthquake. Vice-chancellor Rod Carr says that so far the equivalent of 14,200 full-time students have enrolled for the year. Dr Carr expects the roll will be only 3% below normal - Radio NZ

Waikato University is again being criticised over art and social sciences faculty redundancies. The university has since disestablished 8.7 fulltime positions through voluntary redundancy and retirement, and is considering another 2.5 (two senior lecturers and one part-timer). The university said five positions originally proposed for redundancy had been taken off the table after “extensive consultation”. But TEU says withdrawal of the five positions shows the university plans, by implication, went too far -Waikato Times

The battle between Republicans and labour unions in Ohio, Wisconsin and other states is ostensibly about public workers’ pay, benefits and bargaining rights. What is really at stake, however, is not labour’s income. It is labour’s influence – not just in the American workplace but also in American politics -Washington Post

More universities in England could be put at risk of bankruptcy as a result of cuts and changes to funding, the National Audit Office (NAO) has warned - BBC

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TEU Tertiary Update is published weekly on Thursdays and distributed freely to members of the Tertiary Education Union and others. You can subscribe to Tertiary Update by email or feed reader. Back issues are available on the TEU website. Direct inquiries should be made to Stephen Day.

In December last year TEU members held a series of meetings at which they voted in favour of replacing their multi-employer collective agreement (MECA) with separate, site-based agreements at each of their polytechnics.

At the same time as the final meeting was finishing at Whitireia Community Polytechnic the union received an email from the chief executives of the six polytechnics initiating for another MECA.

TEU national industrial officer Irena Brorens said she regarded this action by the chief executives as a gross breach of trust and good faith.

“This is especially galling given the employers’ statements at the last meeting that they had found the partnership process constructive and useful and wanted to continue it at site level next year.”

TEU has challenged the employer notice for a MECA and has initiated for site agreements at each branch. However, because the employers have initiated for another MECA, TEU must hold a ballot of all members, asking them to vote on whether they wish to be party to this new MECA bargaining (despite having already voted against this in December last year).

TEU members are currently in the process of voting.

Ms Brorens says the previous MECA no longer exists because it expired on the 30 November last year, and all TEU members are now on individual agreements identical to the expired MECA. This is similar to what occurred in March 2010.

“New staff however (this includes any TEU members who are employed on a new fixed-term or hourly-paid agreement) can be offered conditions that are different to and inferior to those on the expired MECA. The important point is no TEU member needs to sign something they are not comfortable with. Talk to us first,” said Ms Brorens.

ITP MECA December update

18 November 2010

Hello TEU members

Initiation Process for the Collective Agreement

Prior to the Central Working Party on the 20 October, TEU and the employer representatives agreed in good faith to delay the initiation process for the bargaining of the collective agreement. This was to ensure there would be constructive discussions at the central and local working parties, to give full effect to the agreed terms of reference for the CWP, as a result of the facilitation process.

Central Working Party

The first central working party was held in Hamilton on 20/21 October facilitated by the Partnership Resource Group (PRG), which is a unit within the Department of Labour.  At this meeting there were employer and TEU representatives from each site plus Alex Twigg and Chris Elphick from the PRC and Sharn Riggs, Chan Dixon and Irena Brorens from the TEU.   At the meeting we reviewed the terms of reference for the working party and developed an agenda for the local working parties.  The terms of reference for the local working parties is:

Discuss the Terms of Reference that the Central Working party came up with for the Local Working Parties

1. a. Discussion on the critical demands of the ITP’s
2. b. What are the implications of this on the workforce and its capability?
3. c. What are the changes that may need to be made to the document and how can it be used to its fullest potential?

Local Working Parties

The task of the local working parties is to assess that Terms of Reference from a ‘local’ perspective, and where appropriate, make recommendations back to the Central Working Party.  Those local meetings have occurred at BoPP, Whitireia and WITT. Unitec’s will be on Monday 22 November, NorthTec’s on Wednesday 24 November and Wintec’s on Monday 29 November.

Next Central Working Party

Following on from the local meetings, the Central Working Party meets again on Tuesday 30 November in Hamilton.  This meeting will receive and review all the feedback from the local working parties and discuss any possible recommendations for a way forward.

Round of Meetings

We have set up a round of members’ meetings between Thursday 2 December to Tuesday 7 December.  At these meeting there will be a report back on the on the local working parties and the central working party, and a discussion on where to from here, including a discussion about the form of the collective agreement for future bargaining.

The schedules for these meetings are as follows:

• Thursday    2 December  WITT and BoPP
• Friday         3 December  Wintec and Unitec
• Monday      6 December  NorthTec
• Tuesday     7 December  Whitireia

The venue and times for these meetings are being finalised with your Branch Presidents and they will notify you of the detail for your branch meetings shortly.

Please attend these important meetings as you will be asked to vote on how we proceed with the next round of negotiations.

Tū Kotahi – Stand as One

Irena Brorens, Lead Advocate – http://scr.im/irenabrorens

On behalf of your bargaining team – Glennis Birks (Wintec), Rod Fearn (WITT), Sarah Hardman (Unitec), Sharon Phillips (Whitireia), Eric Stone (NorthTec), Robyn Tucker (BoPP), Chan Dixon  Co – Advocate (TEU Organiser)

The agreement, which will run until 30 November, agrees to set up a working party to discuss unresolved issues, to be convened by the Partnership Resource Centre, the Department of Labour.  TEU members in the affected polytechnics, as at 4 June, also will receive a one-off lump sum payment of 0.

TEU national president Dr Tom Ryan says the negotiations have been a long and difficult process, as members battled concerted employer and government attacks on basic employment conditions.

“Because of TEU members’ willingness to stand up for their rights, including through unprecedented levels of industrial action, the collective agreement now upholds core work conditions. This is a major achievement for the whole ITP sector,” said Dr Ryan.

After a year of dispute, in May the TEU and the six polytechnics – NorthTec, Unitec, Wintec, Bay of Plenty Polytechnic, WITT, and Whitireia – went to facilitation. The facilitator effectively recommended the TEU’s position, which was that there be no changes to existing conditions and that a working party be established to discuss the employers’ claims around discretionary leave and total teaching days.

TEU national industrial officer Irena Brorens says the settlement is important because the ITP MECA employers did not succeed in reducing core conditions of employment. This was the main issue behind the fractious negotiations and strikes last year.

“TEU members also now have a renewed collective agreement. Before this ratification vote, all TEU members covered by the MECA had been forced on to individual agreements, which was a precarious place for them to be.”

While Ms Brorens says it is good to have these negotiations resolved, she believes a 0 pro-rated lump sum payment is inadequate compensation for members who have now not seen a pay rise since 2008. She is also concerned that the offer does not resolve the unfairness of non-union members at BoPP and Unitec having received pay increases last year when union members did not.

Ratification Vote

Thanks to all of you who participated in the eballot process for this ratification ballot.

The result of the cumulative vote across all six branches is that a new MECA has been ratified. The term will be 01 June 2010 to 30 November 2010.

Thanks also to all of you who took action, stood on picket lines and supported the bargaining team and your colleagues to ensure that we have collective agreement with no loss to your conditions.

This has been a long and frustrating bargaining process for all of us involved but with your commitment and support, we have achieved this outcome.  The bargaining team does realise that many members are disappointed about the remuneration outcome being a lump sum payment and the amount, as opposed to a significant across the board salary increase to the salary scales. Your bargaining team’s task in the next round is to deal with this issue once we have concluded the working party process.

What happens now

• The TEU advocate and the chief executives  will sign the new MECA

• All TEU members covered by the MECA will now cease being on individual agreements and will be covered by the terms and conditions of the new MECA. This will also apply to any new staff who have joined the TEU since 01 March 2010.

• Arrangements will be made with your Human Resources department to action the $700 lump sum payment as per the settlement.

• TEU representatives and employer representatives will arrange a meeting with the Partnership Resource Centre to start the process for the Working Party.

• Once the first working party meeting has been held the TEU bargaining team will arrange for the local working parties to commence their discussions.   Each of the local working parties will be led by either Sharn Riggs TEU National Secretary, Chan Dixon TEU organiser or Irena Brorens TEU National Industrial Officer, all of whom have been involved these negotiations.

Please remember that no decisions will be made in these working parties without consultation with members and any proposed changes will need to be ratified by members.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me, on http://scr.im/irenabrorens

Tū Kotahi – Stand as One

Irena Brorens, MECA Advocate

On behalf of your bargaining team – Glennis Birks (Wintec), Rod Fearn (WITT), Sarah Hardman (UNITEC), Sharon Phillips (Whitireia), Eric Stone (NorthTec), Robyn Tucker (BoPP), Chan Dixon Co – Advocate (TEU Organiser).

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs says it seems irregular that the minister of tertiary education, Steven Joyce, would openly suggest that Wanganui Council sever the links between its Glass School and UCOL so that it could be run as private business, or PTE. Ms Riggs says it is also astonishing that the minister has, according to the Dominion Post, offered to “lean” on the Tertiary Education Commission to make sure it held talks with UCOL about reallocating funding.

“If the news reports are true I think the minister has overstepped the mark,” said Ms Riggs. “The minister should be protecting and improving our public education system not telling local mayors to privatise parts of it.”

Wanganui mayor Michael Laws told the Dominion Post that the council-owned Glass School’s growth and viability is being stifled by the government funding cap on student numbers. He is arguing that UCOL, which runs the school on behalf of the council, reallocate internal funding to increase the Glass School’s number of government-funded places from 24 to 40.

Mr Laws and other Wanganui councillors asked Mr Joyce to lobby UCOL on their behalf.

The glass school was the only one of its kind in the country and was vital to Whanganui’s desire to be known as a centre of excellence for artistry, Mr Laws told Mr Joyce.

“The Wanganui Glass School is a unique part of Wanganui and of New Zealand” said Ms Riggs. “But that does not mean that the minister should be interfering in how the commission or local polytechnics allocate funding.  And he certainly should not be using this as an opportunity to privatise a part of our public education system.”

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. PBRF to favour business research
2. New qualifications framework launched
3. Massey and Canterbury redundancies hurting universities
4. Initiative to help carers keep their jobs

Other news

In bargaining news the ITP MECA ballot closes this afternoon.  We will have the results on the TEU website as soon as they are to hand.  TEU has also initiated for individual site bargaining at most universities around the country.

Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce is not worried by the 30 percent increase in student allowance costs this year but he expected demand for the allowance to gradually decrease over the next few years. “It’s a balancing act because student numbers do tend to go up in a recession, but it’s not something the Government is worried about. Our main focus is the academic benefits,” he said – Dominion Post

A member of the Zimbabwe Universities Lecturers Association says that that education needs to be urgently addressed. “For the past two years, some universities including the biggest, University of Zimbabwe, have failed to open on the scheduled times for a number of times. Three quarters of the qualified staff has gone for greener pastures and students do not have decent accommodation.” – The Zimbabwean

Staff at Melbourne’s Victoria University are locked in a bitter dispute with management over pay rises, with the university moving to dock the wages of academics participating in union work bans. The National Tertiary Education Union says university management have told staff that a pay increase cannot be afforded this year – The Age

The frontier in the battle to defeat student cheating may be here at the testing center of the University of Central Florida. No gum is allowed during an exam: chewing could disguise a student’s speaking into a hands-free cellphone to an accomplice outside – Chronicle of Higher Education

The Australian Qualifications Framework council has rejected the University of Melbourne’s plans to badge some new masters-level degrees as doctorates. The council argues that the new professional degrees in health will diminish their status. The stand-off between Melbourne and the AQF has triggered a sector-wide debate about the integrity of academic titles – The Australian

The Scientist magazine names its top US and international universities at which to be an academic. Sadly none of them are in New Zealand.