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<P><FONT SIZE=2>Anger as student body agrees to university workplace deal<BR>
<BR>
Harriet Alexander<BR>
Higher Education Reporter<BR>
Sydney Morning Herald<BR>
November 15, 2006<BR>
<BR>
A ROW has broken out at the University of NSW over moves by the new<BR>
student representative body to force up to 90 staff onto the<BR>
Australian workplace agreements favoured by the Federal Government.<BR>
<BR>
Staff on salaries of more than $40,000 will need to sign workplace<BR>
agreements, and those on smaller salaries will be part of a new<BR>
agreement that forbids unions from brokering any deals over pay and<BR>
conditions.<BR>
<BR>
But there has been a vicious backlash, and one student politician has<BR>
received hate mail since he was named as an architect of the new<BR>
regime on a workers' rights website.<BR>
<BR>
Susan Price, a branch president of the National Tertiary Education<BR>
Union, said it was hypocritical for a group that only recently<BR>
campaigned to preserve compulsory unionism to force its staff onto<BR>
workplace agreements - the anathema of the union movement.<BR>
<BR>
"We just think it's a real slap in the face for this organisation to<BR>
be then turning around and making this agreement with its staff.".<BR>
<BR>
The agreements will come into force next year, when the four student<BR>
organisations that presently exist at the university are dissolved<BR>
and replaced by a single entity, with 80 to 90 advertised positions.<BR>
The 300 current staff will be paid out and eligible to apply for the<BR>
new jobs.<BR>
<BR>
The new student organisation's interim board voted to adopt the<BR>
arrangement last month. Details were announced to staff two weeks ago.<BR>
<BR>
One disgruntled staff member then posted a message on a website<BR>
blaming the president of the student representative body, Xavier<BR>
O'Halloran, who sits on the board that voted for the changes, saying<BR>
he was a proponent of the Government's industrial laws and Australian<BR>
workplace agreements.<BR>
<BR>
Mr O'Halloran has since been bombarded by insulting emails, but he<BR>
denies having voted for the agreements, saying he is ideologically<BR>
opposed to them.<BR>
<BR>
"I didn't actually support them at any stage," he said.<BR>
<BR>
The chairwoman of the board, Kate Bartlett, said there was no<BR>
hypocrisy in supporting compulsory unionism and introducing<BR>
Australian workplace agreements. They were different issues.</FONT>
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