Workers push for four-day week and 20 per cent pay rise
Workers at the University of Melbourne hope to become the first Australian higher education workers to implement a full-time four-day week and are seeking a 20 per cent pay rise over three years.
The reduced working week will only apply to non-academic “professional staff”, but academic staff are also seeking the right to have their working hours determined by committees, the majority of whose members are workers, with university administrators forming a minority.
Professional staff accounted for about half of the 11,000 full-time equivalent employees in 2024, according to the most recent reporting period.
The bold industrial claims were presented to university management by the National Association for Higher Education on Thursday.
The university generated more than $3.7 billion in revenue in 2024. The same year it agreed to pay back $72 million to more than 25,000 staff who were underpaid for a decade in what the Fair Work Ombudsman described as “unlawful” behaviour.
NTEU University Melbourne branch president David Gonzalez said on Thursday that evidence showed the four-day working week, where employees are paid full-time wages for four standard 7.6-hour workdays, was highly effective.
“The evidence is pretty consistent—productivity is up, absenteeism is down, and retention is up,” Gonzalez said.
“The University of Melbourne prides itself on being evidence-based. It’s time to apply this to its own working conditions.”
Gonzalez said the unusual work hours regulation, determined by staff-dominated committees, was necessary because employees at the university had reached breaking point with their workloads.
“When workloads are set without staff input, the result is burnout, which undermines the ability of academics to deliver first-class teaching and learning.”
He argued that the call for a 20 percent wage increase was justified due to increasing demands.
“You can’t ask staff to do more with less and then offer them a pay raise that doesn’t even cover the cost of living,” Gonzalez said.
The union also wants the university’s rules on artificial intelligence, a growing flashpoint on campuses around the world, to be included in the new workplace agreement.
“Staff has done the work necessary to develop serious proposals. Now is the time for the administration to engage constructively with our plan to make the university work better for staff, students and the community,” Gonzalez said.
A university spokesman said it welcomed progress in negotiations.
“Our existing commitments to sustainable pay adjustments, stability and consistency, and upholding the fundamental principles remain,” the spokesman said.
“When we notified unions of our desire to meet and begin negotiations in October last year, we reiterated our determination to deliver a concrete response. Negotiations to date have been productive and, with the record of demands now on the table, we look forward to making further progress with the aim of reaching agreement in principle on a total package that can be put to a vote by staff later this year.”.”
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