New Enterprise Agreement

The University of Sydney has agreed to a new three year Enterprise Agreement for staff.

In a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed today with the National Tertiary Education Union, the University has agreed to pay staff a 5% pay rise per year for the next three years.

“I believe this is a generous but responsible increase in the current economic climate. In these tough times we are investing in our most valuable asset … our staff,” said Dr Michael Spence, the Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University.

“This agreement will position the University well for the next three years. Our staff will benefit in a number of ways including new parental leave provisions, and better employment conditions for casual staff and those converting from fixed-term employment positions to continuing employment,” Dr Spence said.

“One of the significant changes to be introduced in this EBA will be new teaching focused roles to enable staff to pursue career opportunities in teaching on a fixed term rather than casual basis. These positions, together with new post graduate fellowships for teaching experience, will be good for both our students and our staff,” Dr Spence said.

The Vice-Chancellor acknowledged he union’s willingness to embrace the need for greater efficiencies. “We must remain active in our efforts to restrain the costs of our operations and we are tightening up our administrative costs by continuing to implement shared services in finance, human resources and information technology. This process will need to be accelerated to produce the savings required to afford these salary increases,” he said.

Dr Spence noted that the NTEU had agreed to withdraw the industrial action which had been scheduled for next Tuesday.

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