The National Tertiary Education Union has condemned ACU management’s plan to scrap more than 32 full-time equivalent jobs, pushing total positions lost this year past 110.
ACU senior management has released a new draft paper, which reveals the equivalent of 32.4 full-time equivalent academic roles would be cut.
The new plan is in addition to more than 80 full-time academic and professional jobs that were lost between February and May.
ACU has signalled that even more job cuts are on the way, with another announcement expected soon.
NTEU ACU Branch President Dr Leah Kaufmann said:
“These job cuts are a disaster for ACU.
“There is no way excess spending can be solved by job cuts that risk ACU’s ability to deliver core work, particularly teaching, supporting students and conducting research.
“We believe these cuts are entirely unnecessary and irrelevant to the current financial circumstances, and we wholly reject the reasoning that cutting jobs will solve the growing deficit.
“It is clear that the cause of this deficit is not staff costs, but massive overspending in other areas of the university’s budget, such as travel, that management has simply been unable to get under control.
“Budget management and leadership accountability is needed, not job cuts.
NTEU National President Dr Alison Barnes said:
“Hardworking staff should not be paying for management’s failures with their jobs.
“The NTEU will fight to minimise every job loss and push ACU to scrap their trigger happy approach to people’s livelihoods.
“This is yet another stark example of Australia’s broken university governance model that allows failed managers to cut jobs instead of real accountability. It’s time to fix this in the Universities Accord.”
