The union for University of Wollongong academic staff fears more job cuts are looming with reports over 50 have already been made redundant.
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But UOW management have rubbished reports that 54 staff have been made redundant in the first round of their One-UOW plan.
A spokesperson told the Mercury that on Wednesday UOW notified fewer than 20 professional services staff that their positions were being made redundant.
UOW National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) member Professor Fiona Probyn-Rapsey said outgoing Vice-Chancellor Paul Wellings did speak to staff on Wednesday.
"But there was little detail on the numbers in terms of redundancies," she said.
"We've heard that 54 staff have already been made redundant but we can't get confirmation from the uni.
"We think that we are close to 200 positions having gone now. That is from a combination of three things - the voluntary early retirement scheme that happened last year, voluntary redundancies that were also going on at the same time and the outcome of [One-UOW Tranche 1].
"We have asked repeatedly for the university to confirm those numbers and they have not released any of those numbers.
"We are worried they are not releasing the numbers because they don't want to show that they haven't lived up to the agreement that staff made in good faith with management when we all voted to reduce our wages and conditions to save between 150 and 200 jobs.
"We suspect that the reason they don't want to tell us the numbers is because they have gone beyond that and therefore beyond that goodwill agreement we negotiated with management last year."
UOW did not answer a Mercury question about reports that the university had already secured 135 voluntary redundancies and early retirements.
A spokesperson said regrettably, as a result of the financial position the university was in, a number of staff members have left or will be leaving UOW.
"The university's aim throughout has been to minimise the impact on staff while safeguarding the integrity and quality of the institution's core functions and ensuring UOW's long-term financial stability.
"The new One-UOW operating model achieves financial savings by pooling and streamlining services and reducing areas of duplication.
"The process by which these changes have been introduced has been open, transparent and fair.
"The One-UOW operating model has been designed with a commitment to preserving workforce diversity.
"Late last year the university also offered an ATO-based Voluntary Early Retirement Scheme. That was not a redundancy scheme."
Prof Probyn-Rapsey added it was concerning that Professor Wellings didn't rule out a third-set of job cuts for academic staff.
"He did however flag that UOW is going to be spending around $40 million a year on capital expenditure including buildings," she said."
"The question for us is $40 million a year while we are losing staff. One of our concerns is that again buildings have been put before staff."
The UOW spokesperson added that the staff placement process for Tranche 2 of the One-UOW operating model would not be finalised until early May.
"UOW will act to deploy as many staff to vacant positions as possible to minimise the impact on staff and limit the number of redundancies wherever possible," the spokesperson said.
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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.
