PROTEST TAKES TO THE STREET
DEAKIN University staff rallied at Geelong’s waterfront campus yesterday to protest a plan to cut 400 jobs.
About 40 staff attended the protest, adhering to COVID-19 social distancing rules, to urge Deakin to reverse its “ruthless” decision to slash jobs without consulting employees.
Vice-chancellor Iain Martin has proposed a reduction of around 400 positions in a bid to counter massive financial losses brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) Deakin branch president Kerrie Saville said staff were angry at the university’s decision to go to forced redundancies as a first response.
“Staff have historically enjoyed working at Deakin and considered their employer to be relatively caring in comparison to other universities,” she said. “But this has shown that is not in fact the case.
“Look across the sector with how other universities are responding and they’re consulting staff on the first instance on how to mitigate job losses. Deakin hasn’t.”
The institution is set to make about 400 permanent positions redundant, including 300 staffed jobs and 100 vacant positions.
Ms Saville said the redundancies did not include cuts to casual staff and fixed-term positions, which she predicted would be significant.
“It’s just not going to cause harm to the positions — it will impact the entire workforce. Those Deakin staff who remain will simply not be as engaged with the university,” she said.
The rally formed part of the NTEU’s “Deakin day of action” campaign, which also called on the Federal Government to grant the sector access to the JobKeeper scheme.