There is an Australian workplace in a strategic industry where 350 jobs are in imminent danger.
Management is pleading poor, and pinning part of the blame on the high rate of dollar exchange, for a shortfall in financial projections.
Staff are nervously discussing their future, not above the din of an assembly line at the Altona car plant - where that same number of redundancies, announced by Toyota, sent politicians and journalists a-flutter - but in the sedate, even august surroundings of Sydney University.
There's been comparatively little comment from the outside world, but within its venerable sandstone walls a 'change proposal' has been drawn up that sees 750 academics on a 'hit list', with one in five of those due to be pushed out by the end of this year.
Safety is only for colleagues who've published at least four 'research outputs' in three years, for an annual average of one-and-a-third. It hastens the importation into universities of the 'target culture' so drearily familiar in other fields. And, oddly, it came just weeks after staff were told that a much lower average, of 0.8 per year, would be deemed 'satisfactory' and in line with 'university expectations'.
Add in plans to axe nearly 200 general staff and, unions say, an already overstretched workforce will be left to spend more of its time plugging gaps in basic teaching and administrative provision than concentrating on improving the service for students.
Although university management seem adamant that money will be saved, they admit to having no idea what it will cost to fire staff on this scale.
'Early career researchers' are exempt from the plans, so the brunt will be borne by more experienced lecturers, whose contracts stipulate redundancy payments that will almost certainly average well in excess of a year's salary. The National Tertiary Education Union estimates the cost at around $45 million, even before 'extras', such as buying out entitlements to long service leave, are allowed for.
While the projected growth in student fee income has been revised downwards from an annual 9.6 per cent, it is still expected to come in at just under 7 per cent per year in the next three years. The rate of fee inflation will be less than that, so everyone is working on the assumption that we will have more students to teach.
Sydney fares reasonably well in international comparisons among universities, but a frequent caveat in league tables such as that published annually by the Times Higher Educational Supplement is that our adverse staff/student ratios militate against a higher ranking. If that situation is allowed to worsen still further, it will harm the university's reputation, and justifiably so: students deserve more attention, from both lecturers and admin staff, not less.
Of course, gaps will be plugged by hiring yet more casuals (higher education is already the country's second-most casualised industry, after catering . Once the cost of those arrangements is included, it becomes difficult to see how any savings will accrue, certainly in the first two years. And by that time, there will be hundreds, even thousands more students, so staff will then need to be re-hired.
Looming over the cool cloisters of the university's famous quadrangle is the shadow of a massive new building project, the Centre for Obesity, Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease, with a price tag of $385 million and scheduled for completion in early 2014. (It is, of course, axiomatic with a Sydney building project that costs will rise along the way, as anyone who's extended their house could testify .
Feedback in the consultation process on the proposed job cuts has unsurprisingly included many suggestions to cut back or scrap this project, to save money. In response, in the 'formal change proposal', the claim is made that 'much of the funding which is being used to pay for [it] has been provided specifically for… capital works, and cannot be diverted to other uses'; also that 'significant government funding' has been received.
In fact, the government money, from the Higher Education Endowment Fund, covers only a quarter of the cost. The press release put out at the time boasted that 'the university and its partners' would be making 'substantial investments', but a ring round the partners named - mainly medical research institutes - yielded no evidence that they are paying any of the construction costs.
So the vice chancellor, Dr Michael Spence, apparently pulled down cash from the Rudd government's stimulus package, created to fend off recession in the Global Financial Crisis, by dint of committing $300-odd million of the university's own money… to one building. One can imagine the sound of jaws hitting the floor in Canberra: surely the intention was for this seed funding to be used to parlay contributions from other stake-holders? The centre's website draws attention to the spiralling cost of these diseases to the community at large: surely someone, a big pharmaceutical corporation for example, could have been tapped for funds?
Unlike previous VCs, Spence has contact only with a close circle of top managers. The 'Senior Executive Group' is not always completely of like mind, however: reports say some of its members have called for the University to hand back the government's money, and declare the Obesity Centre unaffordable. For the moment, Spence has faced them down, citing the consequential reputational damage the University would sustain. But as the fight over job cuts becomes more bloody, the perceived balance of advantage, on reputational grounds alone, may shift.
From:
- Associate Professor Jake Lynch, Director, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney
- Dr Nick Riemer, Senior Lecturer, English and Linguistics, University of Sydney
- Dr Peter John Chen, Lecturer, Government and International Relations, University of Sydney
- Dr Frances M. Clarke, Senior Lecturer, History, University of Sydney
- Dr Sheleyah Courtney, Lecturer, Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney
- Dr Bill Dunn, Senior Lecturer, Political Economy, University of Sydney
- Dr Melissa Hardie, Senior Lecturer, English, University of Sydney
- Dr Laleen Jayamanne, Senior Lecturer, Art History and Film Studies, University of Sydney
- Mr Mark Johnston, Software and Assets Officer, School of Letters, Art and Media, University of Sydney
- Dr Kate Lilley, Senior Lecturer, English, University of Sydney
- Dr Louise Marshall, Senior Lecturer, Art History and Film Studies, University of Sydney
- Dr Nicola Parsons, Senior Lecturer, English, University of Sydney
- Dr Michael Paton, Teaching Quality Fellow, Economics and Business, University of Sydney
- Associate Professor Peter Slezak, School of History and Philosophy, University of New South Wales
- Professor Paul Redding, Philosophy, University of Sydney
- Associate Professor Vanessa Smith, English, University of Sydney
- Dr Susan Thomas, Director, Writing Hub, Faculty of Arts, University of Sydney
- Dr Lawrence Warner, Senior Lecturer, English, University of Sydney
- Dr Sue Woolfe, Lecturer, English, University of Sydney
- Dr Huw Griffiths, Senior Lecturer, English, University of Sydney
- Dr Karl Maton, Senior Lecturer, Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney
- Dr Sarah Gleeson-White, Senior Lecturer in American Literature, Department of English, University of Sydney
- Dr Jennifer Dowling, Educational Designer, Arts eLearning, School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry, University of Sydney
- Dr David Bray, Senior Lecturer, Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney
- Dr Damien Cahill, Senior Lecturer and Chair of Department, Political Economy, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney
- Wayne Isbister, Teaching and Curriculum Coordinator, School of Languages and Cultures, University of Sydney
- Dr Beatriz Carrillo Garcia, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney
- Lucy Fiske, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney
- Dr Wendy Lambourne, Senior Lecturer and Academic Co-ordinator, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney
- Associate Professor John Grumley, Department of Philosophy, University of Sydney
- Dr Rebecca Johinke, Lecturer, Department of English; Director, Student Support Programs, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
- Dr Michelle Royer, Senior Lecturer and Chair, Department of French Studies,
University of Sydney
- Dr Alice Caffarel, Department of French Studies, University of Sydney
- Dr Carolyn Stott, Senior Lecturer, Department of French Studies, University of Sydney
- Dr Ahmar Mahboob, Department of Linguistics, University of Sydney
- Dr Anna Hickey-Moody, Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney
- Richard White, co-editor, History Australia; Senior Lecturer, Department of History, University of Sydney
- Dr Tom Barnes, Lecturer, Political Economy, University of Sydney
- Dr Andrea Bandhauer, Senior Lecturer, Germanic Studies, Director of International and Comparative Literary Studies, University of Sydney
- Ms Judith Beveridge (Dept of English - Creative Writing , University of Sydney
- Dr Toni Borowsky, Senior Lecturer, Linguistics, University of Sydney
- Dr Benjamin Miller, Associate Director, Writing Hub, University of Sydney
- Associate Professor Bronwyn Winter, Department of French Studies, University of Sydney
- Associate Professor Michael McDonnell, Department of History, University of Sydney
- Dr Christopher Hartney, Lecturer, Studies in Religion
- Dr David Kelly, Senior Lecturer, Department of English, University of Sydney
- Honorary Associate Professor Ahmad Shboul, Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Sydney
- Dr Cynthia Hunter, Senior Lecturer, Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney
- Dr Jadran Mimica, Department of Anthropology, University of Sydney
- Dr Jennifer Wilkinson, Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney
- Dr Antonio Castillo, Department of Media and Communications, University of Sydney
- Dr Victoria Grieves, Australian Research Council Indigenous Research Fellow, University of Sydney
- Dr Melissa Gregg, Senior Lecturer, Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney
- Annabel McGoldrick, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney
- Dr Fiona Probyn-Rapsey, Senior Lecturer, Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney
- Professor Margaret C. Miller, Arthur and Renee George Professor of Classical Archaeology, Department of Archaeology, University of Sydney
- Ms Frances Muecke, Department of Classics & Ancient History, University of Sydney
- Dr Chris Chesher, Senior Lecturer, Digital Cultures, University of Sydney
- Dr Nicholas Eckstein, Cassamarca Senior Lecturer in Italian History, Department of History, University of Sydney
- Dr Antonia Rubino, Senior Lecturer and Chair, Department of Italian Studies, University of Sydney
- Dr Julie-Ann Robson, School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry, University of Sydney
- Dr Mark Byron, Lecturer, Department of English, University of Sydney
- Dr Neil Maclean, Senior Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, University of Sydney
- Dr Brigid Rooney, Senior Lecturer, Department of English, University of Sydney
- Dr Nerida Jarkey, Senior Lecturer, Japanese Studies, University of Sydney
- Professor Eric Csapo, Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of Sydney
- Dr David Macarthur, Senior Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, University of Sydney
- Dr Christina Alt, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of English, University of Sydney
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