MEMBERS of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) will go on strike tomorrow (November 1) at the University of Canberra urging UC management to “do better” for its staff, says NTEU UC branch president Dr Craig Applegate. 

NTEU members went on strike on October 17 raising issues about professional staff and academic workloads, job security and the assistant professor scheme at UC. 

Following the first strike, UC management announced it will put an agreement to an all staff vote without Union endorsement but, Dr Applegate says tomorrow’s strike will encourage staff to vote “no” after NTEU members met last week and unanimously rejected the agreement, which made no changes to any of the key issues. 

“We will be vigorously campaigning for staff to vote ‘no’ to send a strong message to UC management that they have to do better,” Mr Applegate says. 

“UC staff deserve to be valued, supported and respected, but this whole round of bargaining has demonstrated not only a failure to hear, but also to really listen and understand staff concerns on the part of UC management.

“We believe that a resounding ‘no’ vote will mean that management can no longer ignore the frustrations and concerns of staff.”