The impasse concerns the redeployment of current school of music staff, with the NTEU claiming ANU management had shown no genuine desire to negotiate.

But the ANU countered, accusing the NTEU of backtracking and seeking media attention.

NTEU ACT division secretary Stephen Darwin refused to rule out notifying Fair Work Australia if the deadlock continued.

''After compromising considerably during this dispute, it has been extremely frustrating that ANU management representatives have been persistently incapable of reasonable negotiations over critical matters of staff redeployment and future resourcing,'' Mr Darwin said.

In May, the ANU announced a $1.5 million cost-saving restructure of the ANU's School of Music to make courses more vocational and less performance-based. Staff cuts were proposed as part of the restructure, with academic positions to be reduced from 24 to 13 and administrative positions cut from 10 to 8. At least 10 staff are said to have accepted voluntary redundancies.

Mr Darwin said the union was concerned about the fate of remaining staff and whether they would be redeployed into new positions.

But ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Young said the university had worked in good faith to reach a position from which to deliver a first-class music degree. ''This … appears to be a ploy to seek media attention and to unsettle and upset staff and students,'' he said.