ANU opens voluntary redundancy scheme as union persists with vote of no confidence

Australian National University employees taking voluntary redundancy will receive three weeks’ salary for each year of service, with a minimum of five weeks’ and a maximum of 68 weeks’ pay for academic staff or 64 weeks’ for professional staff.

The ANU has opened its Voluntary Separation Scheme to expressions of interest from eligible staff, which will close on 14 March.

At the same time, the National Tertiary Education Union has opened its Vote of No Confidence in the ANU’s leadership over the university’s budget blowout and subsequent cost-cutting program to reduce recurrent spending by $250 million.

Staff accepted for redundancy will also receive payment for any unused accumulated annual leave and, for those who have met the one-year qualifying period under the Enterprise Agreement, long service leave.

The VSS payment will be treated as a genuine redundancy for tax purposes.

The notice period will be six weeks plus a week extra for employees aged more than 45 years.

The NTEU said the VSS did not include an Academic Transition Payment or pay in lieu of the Redeployment period.

ACT secretary Dr Lachlan Clohesy told members that the NTEU argued for the VSS to include those elements, but ultimately, the ANU was not obliged to offer them as part of the package.

“NTEU has also prioritised workloads of those remaining, and we’ve sought to ensure that there will be no further forced redundancies proposed while the VSS process is underway,”.

The ANU said that “not every application would be accepted”.

“Each expression of interest will be considered in the context of our ongoing strategic and operational needs, ensuring that we can accommodate the reduction of the relevant position in that particular function,” it said.

The university has also created a voluntary separation estimator to provide staff with an estimate of a potential redundancy offer.

Coming milestones are Wednesday, 26 March, when the Recruitment Approval Committee (RAC) reviews EOIs, considers recommendations and makes final determinations, and Monday, 31 March, when staff and their leaders are told if their applications have been successful.

To use the estimator and read a Q&A on the VSS, visit the ANU website.

The NTEU is continuing its campaign against the ANU leadership. It held a rally on Wednesday (26 February) to coincide with the opening of its Vote of No Confidence ballot against Vice-Chancellor Genevieve Bell.

That has drawn the wrath of the ANU Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Churchill, who called it a vehicle for mis- and disinformation, saying it was not up to the NTEU to decide the university’s leadership and the vote “had no legal or binding effect”.

“While I and my leadership colleagues don’t shy away from criticism or scrutiny, I do object to activities which deliberately seek to destabilise and misinform,” he said.

Mr Churchill said the NTEU’s recent all-staff meeting about the vote used information selectively to question the serious financial challenge the university faced.

“In fact, the Australian National Audit Office audits our finances every year, as they are doing at the moment, and our audited financial statements are tabled in Parliament,” he said.

“In addition, we committed last year to doing a quarterly financial update with our community, and we will continue to do that for as long as our community is interested.”

Mr Churchill said the ANU’s financial challenges were not about the Vice-Chancellor or the Chancellor and had slowly built up over many years due to a range of factors and headwinds.

“My concern about the NTEU’s ‘vote’ is about the impact on our community and the white noise of confusion and angst it creates,” he said.

“Despite this, I still firmly believe unions can and should play an important role in a modern workplace, and I remain optimistic that the NTEU will engage with us constructively. I welcome them to submit ideas they have on how to return our university to a sustainable footing.”