Thread: I've now had a close read of the NTEU proposal for a Job Protection Framework for universities. It's horrific that the Morrison govt has left universities in this spot. But I think it's the best deal university staff are likely to get in the current crisis.

Details of the NTEU deal with Vice-Chancellors here: https://www.nteu.org.au/covid-19/jobs_protection_framework

I think the key point about the Universities-NTEU deal is that if the universities sign up, it will definitely save a lot of jobs. The modelling says 12,000 jobs, which is a lot of livelihoods in a pandemic recession

A massive point for me is that the deal will save a lot of casual and fixed-term contract work. If the Universities sign up, there are pretty strong legal guarantees to stop unis from getting rid of casuals and not renewing contracts

This is so much better than what would likely happen with no deal, which is that universities would simply let tens of thousands of casuals go, and overload FT staff with extra unpaid work

And FT university staff will have to make painful sacrtifices in the form of pay cuts for the deal to stick. So to my mind, that's real, genuine solidarity to try and save as many jobs as possible

The macro side of the deal is really bad for the economy, of course. Pay cuts in a recession simply deepens an ecomic downturn. That's entirely the responsibility of the Morrison government and its ideological hatred for the university sector