Job losses at La Trobe University leave staff exhausted and students uncertain
During the first week back at university, La Trobe University students were confused as they walked to class only to discover that it had been cancelled. Staff received a deluge of emails from anxious students trying to figure out why they could no longer enrol into subjects.
It was a jungle of miscommunication between staff, students, and administration.
Several employees from the university described the situation to The Age, saying, “It’s bottomed out” and another mentioning that many were “pretty tired”.
This comes after staff were informed that another 250 to 300 full-time positions would be lost. In February, 96 staff members received voluntary redundancies that affected regional campuses.
The National Job Protection Framework (JPF) formulated by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) is set to end on 30 June, leaving many jobs at risk.
La Trobe University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor John Dewar, reassured staff through an email that they will receive a 1.6 percent pay increase in July after the end of the JPF program. He adds that the JPF saved 225 jobs last year.
Professor Dewar told Rabelais that the university aims to improve the structure and delivery of courses for students in the next few years as part of their new strategic plan.
“We will continue to work on the efficiency and effectiveness of our operations so that we can devote as much of our time and resource [sic] to our core activities of teaching and research,” Professor Dewar wrote.
Despite the JPF saving 225 jobs, La Trobe Student Union (LTSU) President Jake McGuinness told Rabelais that the JPF did not achieve its goal in protecting staff, and the future at the university sees more positions to be removed.
“All it’s done is delayed that process and we’re still seeing double the staff losses. So, there’s a lot of anger relating to that,” McGuinness said.
He went on to say, “I think the job framework was despicable. And the way it was pushed at La Trobe, in particular, was horrendous.”
In August last year, the university announced that 239 staff members had taken voluntary redundancies due to COVID-19.
Surprisingly, this is not the first time staff at La Trobe University have seen jobs cuts and have had to say good-bye to their fellow educators.
Job losses are a familiar sight at the university
In 2013, the NTEU released a statement including Professor Dewar’s comments as to why a large number of staff were being laid off during that time.
Professor Dewar states that the university was having performance issues that year. His reasoning for the negative staff performance points to the $65 million “budget hole” in the funding for the higher education sector.
A total of 350 jobs were cut at the institution that year.
An academic from the Department of Public Health at La Trobe University told Rabelais that staff have chosen to stay or take redundancies depending on their situation over the years. However, for many it feels as though they are reliving something that happened years ago.
“Before I started, La Trobe went through quite a big restructure as well. And there’s quite a number of staff who’ve been through both of those now and feel very exhausted by it,” the academic told Rabelais.
A student from the La Trobe Students Against Uni Cuts organisation, Matthias Radja, told Rabelais that job cuts in the higher education system have been an ongoing issue for a long time.
“Governments of all stripes have been cutting education in Australia for decades…this has been accelerated by the COVID crisis,” Radja said.
In April 2020, La Trobe University’s JobKeeper application was rejected by the Federal Government after failing to meet the 15 percent threshold.
In the same month, Professor Dewar released an email to staff saying that job redundancies were inevitable as the university faced a significant downfall in revenue.
Effects of the JPF on staff
In May, the NTEU released the JPF as a collaborative effort with several university vice-chancellors, including Professor Dewar, to help save 12,000 jobs in the higher education sector.
The academic from the Department of Public Health adds that all staff had to take a pay cut.
“We all took a 10 percent minimum pay cut, the Vice-Chancellor and senior executives all took 20 percent pay cuts,” the academic said.
The University of Melbourne is one of the universities that rejected the JPF as they did not see a priority in laying off staff during the height of COVID-19.
A staff member from the La Trobe Casuals Staff Network who works in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences told Rabelais that the university continues to remove jobs despite the consequences of previous restructures at the university.
“No one’s learned anything… the same mistakes are still being made by management… full-time staff are afraid of their jobs and they’re so overworked. Then casual staff just don’t know what’s going on,” they said.
“The Job Protection Framework was probably one [of] the most tense and volatile things that I’ve experienced at my time here… and I think it divided members of the university… management did a really good job at scaring the shit out of everyone into thinking, ‘look at how much money we don’t have’.”
The staff member felt that their job security didn’t change and communication between casual staff and management was unclear. It left most casuals unsure of what exactly was taking place.
NTEU La Trobe Branch Committee President, Virginia Mansel Lees, told Rabelais that the union wanted a clear plan for all staff members, however, the other parties involved wanted to continue without properly discussing the plan with all other members involved.
“What we were trying to ensure is that there was some semblance of order, not this sort of slash and burn,” Lees said.
“Each campus is a community and we want students to be part of that community and understand that community is what helps each student in their learning.”
Regardless of all the consequences from the JPF, 66 percent of staff last year voted to join the agreement hoping that it would help save jobs.
Professor Dewar stated that the new restructuring plan at La Trobe would ensure a reduction in the workload of staff while maintaining productivity, quality, and efficiency.
“We are continuously revising areas of work that can be reduced, stopped or consolidated to ensure staff workloads are manageable and reasonable,” Professor Dewar told Rabelais.
The 2020-2030 Strategic Plan for La Trobe University states that future courses will be aligned based on student demand and that simplified course structures will be introduced to prevent further increases in workloads.
However, the university predicts a $170 million revenue downturn in 2021.
Many courses and programs have been closed due to low enrolment rates such as the theatre program despite strong opposition from the community.
Radja mentioned that the Hindi and Greek language courses have also been effected and barely managed to escape being scrapped by the university.
“It’s like blackmail almost… [the university said] we’ll hold on to this program for you… make sure that enrolments pick up in the next few years and we’ll put off the cut for one to two years,” he said.
What needs to be done?
Professor Dewar says that La Trobe is doing its best to provide the most flexibility for staff and students while reducing expenditure and increasing revenue.
He said that “… the key to our future growth lies in the hands of the State and Federal Governments and the decisions they make about reopening borders to international students,”
While this is also a key issue, many staff want proper changes to take place at the university first, before knocking on the government’s door.
The staff member from the La Trobe’s Casual Workers Network continues to fight against job cuts to change the way casuals are treated at the university.
“We’re about increasing rights for casuals, but at the same time working to dismantle this ridiculous system that perpetuates casualization,” the staff member said.
“And I think part of that is talking to students more about it.”
The academic from the Department of Public Health mentions that staff are just tired of so many changes that always lead to a band-aid solution.
“There’s been so much change and so much angst, that people are feeling exhausted even at the beginning of the semester,” the academic said.
Universities are communities made of staff and students. To teach and to be taught is how the future of how our world continues.
LTSU President Jake McGuinness encourages staff and students to axe the idea of universities being “degree factories” and instead focus on the education for students.
“We should have an active voice in how it develops and how it changes. If we want a university with a high quality of education, where staff are treated well, then we’ve got to do something about it,” McGuinness said.
Image: "Agora at La Trobe University Bundoora" by phil.lees is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. This image has not been modified.