Monash University’s priority continues to be keeping the number of required job losses, due to effects of Covid-19, to a minimum, and of course maintaining the excellence of our research and education.
“Monash has made a temporary variation to our Enterprise Agreement (EA) with the support of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), the Monash branch union and our staff. This will help us save 190 jobs – it received overwhelming support, with 89.34 per cent of the eligible staff who participated voting yes, and was recently approved by the Fair Work Commission.
“Inclusions are; voluntary separation packages, an opt in five day leave purchase scheme, no bonuses paid for 2020, staff with excess leave balances over 30 days to take them and no pay increment increases until mid 2021.
“The senior management team has also taken a 20% pay cut.
“Job losses are an unfortunate result of the Covid-19 global health crisis across many industries. They will continue to be a reality without further government support in particular for research. At this stage, for Monash there will be a loss of 277 jobs by the end of year.
“Without the EA variation, this figure would have been 467.
“Monash is projecting a $350 million revenue shortfall for 2020 and has implemented a range of non-salary reductions to deal with this loss.
“Due to the impact of Covid-19 on university operations in semester one, 477 casual staff and 26 sessional staff were no longer required for the remainder of the semester. These staff will have priority where we require this work again in semester two.
“Monash has committed to use casuals and sessionals in 2021 at the same level as 2020 where the work is required in 2021. Forecast numbers for 2021 are yet to be determined until after our budgetary process takes shape and we have implemented the measures within the EA variation in 2020. We will know the outcomes of this in early October.”
