University of Melbourne staff have rejected a proposed variation to their Enterprise Agreement in a ballot held on Wednesday 10 June.
The proposal asked staff to forgo a 2.2 per cent pay rise awarded on 1 May, and to agree to the introduction of a Voluntary Separation Package designed to help minimise forced redundancies. Forgoing the pay rise was a measure proposed to avoid between 200 and 300 job losses across the University.
5190 staff voted ‘no’ to the proposed variation and 2879 voted ‘yes’. The percentage of eligible voters who took the opportunity to cast a vote was 51 per cent.
University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor Duncan Maskell said: “Ultimately, this outcome will not change our ability to survive the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it will certainly make the task ahead more challenging for all of us as we move towards inevitable workforce reductions.”
Professor Maskell said the University Executive and senior leaders will continue the task of planning the University’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As I have said previously, we cannot live beyond our means. We are facing a large reduction in our recurrent revenue and therefore quite simply have to reduce our recurrent expenditure. We will continue the planning process to look for savings we can make without compromising our recovery,” Professor Maskell said.
“As custodians of the long-term future of the University of Melbourne, we will continue the effort to reshape the University to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic stronger and smarter.”
