University staff to hold ballot on industrial action

STAFF at the University of Otago have taken a step in the direction of industrial action, expressing dissatisfaction with current pay and conditions.

More than 300 members of the university branch of the Tertiary Education Union (TEU) have attended a stopwork meeting to consider the university’s current pay offer as TEU bargaining takes place at universities nationwide.

Branch president Craig Marshall said attendees voted to hold a ballot next week on whether industrial action should be taken.

‘‘There was a very strong feeling that things need to change,’’ Dr Marshall said.

The ballot will open next Tuesday and close next Friday.

All eight university TEU branches nationally held stopwork meetings this week and all decided to ballot for industrial action, he said.

He would not reveal what staff have been offered as negotiations were ongoing.

‘‘We talked about the offers that have been made, our counter offer, and discussed the concerns that members had.’’

Not only were staff concerned the current offer did not keep pace with inflation, they were concerned workloads had markedly increased due to the Covid19 pandemic.

Loss of colleagues who left to work betterpaying jobs elsewhere was also a concern raised at the meeting, he said.

What, if any, industrial action would be taken would be determined by the negotiations taking place over the next month or so.

‘‘We have an offer that our members have indicated is not acceptable—that message will be taken back to the university.

‘‘In the immediate future we will be back in bargaining.’’

A University of Otago spokesman said this week that as the university was in the early stages of the bargaining process, it would be inappropriate to comment.