UNIVERSITY of Canberra has denied telling staff there would be a strong likelihood of significant retrenchments at the end of 2012 as part of major end-of-year changes, in spite of a tertiary union reporting it had fielded worried phone calls from academics.
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Educators were concerned they would lose their jobs or be deployed to work in other entities, prompting the National Tertiary Education Union to send around a bulletin reminding staff of their rights. ACT divisional secretary Stephen Darwin of the NTEU said the potential merger with the Canberra Institute of Technology had some academics worried they would be redeployed.
''We don't have tangible evidence [except] speculation circulated by middle managers at the university and people are hearing that in meetings and are asking to know their rights,'' he said.
However, the university has hit back by suggesting the union may be preparing to use this as a tool in the coming round of redundancies.
''We don't know what the NTEU is referring to,'' a university spokesman said.
''We know that enterprise bargaining is starting soon and can only assume this is part of their campaign. The NTEU represents less than 20 per cent of the eligible workforce at UC.
''We do not anticipate redeployments to other entities.
''If there were any it would be under the provisions of the enterprise agreement that the unions and the university signed.
''However, nothing more can be said until a final decision is made on the relationship between UC and CIT in the future.''
Mr Darwin said staff were feeling pressure to meet research goals, but those did not necessarily reflect the reality of academic life.
''Australian universities are struggling for funding but at the same time it is important to realise that academics work in cycles,'' he said.
''They are involved in different teaching and research activities.''
The university spokesman said that since performance expectations for academic staff were clearly spelt out in July 2009 performances had improved ''significantly''.
''We are now seventh in the country on the Good Teaching Scale of the Australian Graduate Survey and rising,'' he said.
''Our research income per academic has also risen seven places putting us at 19th in the sector - the median point.
''Our popularity with students has increased - we are now the largest we have ever been and last year posted the largest surplus in our history.''
