Guranteed Research Right For All Is A Goner

​Greg Baker claims another win in his Fair Work Commission case against Macquarie U, reporting the university has not lodged an appeal in the standard 21 days. This seems a remarkably relaxed response by MU. Mr Baker's case could set a precedent for it, and other universities – but the big change could be a way to end the already-eroding requirement of a guaranteed 40% of academics' time for research. Mr Baker explains his victory at length here and here but the basics are that while employed as a casual teaching academic at Macquarie U he met the conditions for continuing employment. The university argued he did not, including because its Enterprise Agreement precluded part-time employment for teaching-only academics. Commissioner Crawford was not convinced that all his work was teaching, but his bigger reason was that Baker's recurring part-time employment met the Commonwealth's National Employment Standards for continuing work. And the Standards trump Macquarie's EA. MU is not talking to FC about the judgement, neither are the other universities asked, but there are reasons why they collectively may not mind a precedent for a pathway to continuing employment for part-time teaching-only staff. There will be more rostering flexibility than if all academic staff are governed by the traditional 40-40-20 allocation of working hours between teaching, research and service. And that is a hill where the National Tertiary Education Union's flag flies high, notably at the enterprise agreement precedent setting University of Sydney. The comrades claim management there is trying to impose, 'new categories of employment that will destroy the teaching-research nexus and are dead ends career-wise.' They probably mean proposed teaching associates, industry education specialists, and postgraduate fellows, which would build on existing teaching-specialist roles. It's a challenge for the union. Even if a university agreed to making research roles a condition of all teaching employment under an enterprise agreement, it would not matter if that failed the National Employment Standard.