THE University of Newcastle has set a target of 150 staff for its early retirement scheme, one of several cost-saving measures it has introduced in the wake of COVID-19.
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Vice Chancellor Alex Zelinsky unveiled the target in an online staff forum on Tuesday, in which he also provided updates on UON's course optimisation and faculty restructure.
These will be finalised in coming months, even though the institution is in a healthier financial position than it had expected.
"We've had a bit of a turnaround, which is really good," Professor Zelinsky said.
"Semester two is looking strong, we've got more domestic students than we budgeted for enrolling [mid-year], which is tremendous news.
"Our international student demand is still there, it did not drop as low as we forecast.
"That has meant a roughly $15 to $20 million turnaround in some figures.
"It means we will break even or have a small surplus this year, which is different to what I said last time, [when] I said a loss or a break even at best."
However he said 2021 would be "much harder" and so "our savings measures must continue".
"Restrictions on international students have not eased at all," he said.
"I believe the longer the government doesn't allow international travel, the less chance students will take up their Australian study options."
He said a two per cent pay rise in the enterprise bargaining agreement that came into effect last month had also "put an extra pressure on".
"We've got to do about $12 million better than we did this year to pay for the pay rise."
National Tertiary Education Union Newcastle branch president Dan Conway said the union had been calling on university management and council to "remain calm and not react prematurely" regarding its financial position.
"Management is now forecasting a loss next year, but we are concerned the assumptions driving this are overly pessimistic," Mr Conway said.
"Even if income is down next year, the University has amassed significant financial resources on the back of staff over the years to support it through the short to medium term.
"Staff, quite rightly, are now asking questions about the motives and justifications behind the major course cuts and restructuring being proposed.
"The Vice-Chancellor has repeatedly pointed out that budgets have been further impacted through staff receiving their scheduled pay rise. However, he also maintained the two prime cost-saving mechanisms - course cuts and restructuring - were going to happen regardless of staff sacrifices."
Mr Conway said it was "nonsense" to suggest that forgoing the scheduled pay rise would have halted the course optimisation or faculty restructure.
"Additionally, the NTEU offered to defer the pay rises, if in return, the Vice-Chancellor and senior managers would share the personal financial burden - keeping in mind that the VC and senior managers gave themselves a pay rise in February - and most importantly, ensure job security for the thousands of casual, contract and ongoing staff during the COVID-19 health crisis," Mr Conway said. "Our members' requests were wholly rejected."
Professor Zelinsky said UON had sought approval from the Australian Tax Office and expected to open expressions of interest on October 12 for its early retirement scheme.
He said UON wanted 150 staff - who need to be aged 55 or older and have at least five years service - to sign up and had already received a "high level of interest".
They will receive 10 weeks pay, plus an additional week of pay for each year at the institution, capped at 26 weeks.
Staff who qualify will finish working at UON by the end of the year.
"People think this is a redundancy program, it's not a redundancy program, it's a program which actually allows people to retire from the university, maybe transition out from the university over a period and have an ongoing connection with the university," he said.
"Redundancy programs generally mean that the positions aren't replaced at all and we seek with the early retirement program to actually in the end replace those positions with more junior positions, in time."
Mr Conway said all staff had the right to consider what suits their personal circumstances.
"However, we are advising our members to seek independent financial advice before entering into any agreement, noting that the scheme is not as generous as available redundancy provisions," Mr Conway said.
"We are hearing from our members that the financial advice they have received, is that they are better off working a bit longer if they are happy to."
Professor Zelinsky said there were no plans for voluntary redundancy programs "at this time".
"We're not considering it, we don't think it's needed, this is the right program for us."
Speaking later about course optimisation and the faculty restructure, he said while "we cannot rule out a forced redundancy ultimately... that's not our intent".
"If it comes down to the fact that there is no job to do obviously we'd have to consider that [redundancy], but I think that's a more extreme example, and I believe people are very adaptable and we support change, people getting retrained into a new opportunity that exists."
Mr Conway said the NTEU welcomed Professor Zelinsky considering forced redundancies as 'extreme'.
"We say that before anyone is made forcibly redundant through any course cutting or restructuring, there must be a call for voluntary redundancies as has been done at other institutions," Mr Conway said.
"In today's presentation the Vice-Chancellor identified staff are very skilled 'and can be retrained into a new opportunity that exists'.
"This, we say, lays the path for publicly committing to no forced redundancies of UON staff and offering a voluntary redundancy expression of interest program before making anyone forcibly redundant."
Professor Zelinsky said 500 of UON's more than 2200 courses had been identified for potential suspension, consolidation or discontinuation, as had three of the more than 100 undergraduate programs and 19 of the more than 90 postgraduate programs.
He said the five faculties would be rolled into three colleges, of health, medicine and wellbeing; engineering science and environment; and human and social futures.
He said the number of positions that would be affected by the changes had not yet been confirmed, but that UON would consult with staff.
News broke shortly before the forum that minor party the Centre Alliance had struck a deal to support the federal government's university funding reforms, which will increase fees for humanities and social science degrees to pay for fee cuts in courses in areas of expected job growth.
The government has said its Job-Ready Graduates bill will create 30,000 new places next year. It could pass the Senate as early as this week.
Professor Zelinsky said the government's "marginal model... is barely covering our costs".
"We may be asked to take more students on, but we're not going to make a motza out of it and it's not going to cross subsidise other things."
He later said it was "unfair" to give South Australian universities extra funding to increase places, because "South Australia is no worse off than us".
He agreed with Professor Catharine Coleborne labelling it a "sad day" for humanities and social sciences (HASS) students.
"The reasoning behind it is not sound, because people with HASS degrees do get jobs," he said.
"I think the government in the end has dug itself into holding a line there. I wish they were flexible enough to change the funding contributions and still get the results they wanted, they could have actually done it with a different profile."
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Helen Gregory
Helen Gregory joined the Newcastle Herald in 2010. She is the masthead’s education reporter and has written for the H2 and Weekender sections, as well as across a range of issues. Helen is a Walkley Award winning journalist and was also part of the Newcastle Herald team that won the United Nations World Environment Day Media Award for Environmental Reporting.
Helen Gregory joined the Newcastle Herald in 2010. She is the masthead’s education reporter and has written for the H2 and Weekender sections, as well as across a range of issues. Helen is a Walkley Award winning journalist and was also part of the Newcastle Herald team that won the United Nations World Environment Day Media Award for Environmental Reporting.
