Page 5 - AHEIA Annual Report

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S REPORT
The publication of the Higher Education Workforce of the Future Report in January 2016 was a signi cant landmark for the university sector, and will no doubt be the cornerstone for a changing employment environment in universities over the years ahead. Its signi cance was on display early, with the Vice-Chancellors of the Association’s four Western Australian member universities jointly announcing to their sta that they would be embarking on a co- ordinated approach to making transformational changes to their enterprise agreements to manage their future needs in line with the ndings of the Report.
A new era of bargaining was indeed a key theme of 2016, with the University
of Canberra setting the scene early in the year with its successful negotiation
of a new plain-English enterprise agreement with signi cant streamlining of processes and procedures. This was followed by the co-ordinated approach to bargaining undertaken by the West Australian universities with similar and further objectives, and bargaining at other universities as the year unfolded. The bargaining in Western Australia and elsewhere was still ongoing at the end
of 2016, with general uncertainty as to the likelihood of the universities and employee bargaining representatives being able to reach agreement on their respective claims in the immediate future, if at all.
The other major exercise undertaken by the Association during 2016 was our involvement in the so-called 4-yearly
Review of Modern Awards by the Fair Work Commission, which involved hearings before a Full Bench dealing with union and employer applications for variations of the Modern Awards which operate as a benchmark for the negotiation of university enterprise agreements for the purposes of the statutory “better-o -overall-test”.
The Association received tremendous feedback from its annual membership survey on the activities undertaken
for our members, including for our two annual conferences which, along with our members-only national enterprise bargaining forum, were again extremely- well attended.
All in all, 2016 was a very exciting year, as elaborated on in the body of this Annual Report.
Stuart Andrews Executive Director
AHEIA Annual Report 2016 5