National Tertiary Education Union assistant secretary Damien Cahill has hit out at University of Wollongong management for walking away from negotiations.
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Talks aimed at keeping UOW financially viable broke down on Wednesday.
"We thought they were progressing well," Mr Cahill said on behalf of the UOW branch of the NTEU.
"They've now emailed staff to say negotiations have failed and they intend to pursue probably about 350 forced redundancies.
They've now emailed staff to say negotiations have failed and they intend to pursue probably about 350 forced redundancies.
- National Tertiary Education Union assistant secretary Damien Cahill
"We think this is unnecessary. We were willing to consider savings measures that would have ensured the financial sustainability of the university and saved jobs.
"In the end they walked away from negotiations. You have to question whether they were really committed to saving jobs in the first place or if this was something they wanted to pursue all along."
The University's Joint Consultative Committee (JCC)-comprised of management and both staff unions' representatives-held a series of meetings since mid-June.
"The JCC has met seven times since Friday 19 June, with UOW management providing several variants on Option 1 to address local union representatives' feedback.," Vice-Chancellor Paul Wellings said.
And, Mr Cahill thought things were going well.
"We had seven meetings and we thought it was going quite well ' he said.
"But the sticking point really is we wanted a commitment to no forced redundancies for the life of the variations.
"They weren't willing to do this. They wanted to be able to cut wages and make people redundant as well which just wasn't acceptable to us.
"We are not going to accept wage cuts if there isn't enforceable job protection guarantees.
"We are still open to negotiating with the university, but if they want to walk away then we will just have to fight these redundancies."
Should key positions put by unions change, the University remains "willing and ready to continue to discuss and consult with both unions about strategies that make employment-related savings that preserve as many jobs as possible at the University".
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Agron Latifi
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
