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TEU members, pictured on September 21, at the University of Otago vote on strike action.
Thousands of university workers will strike this week, just weeks away from the end of the academic term.
The vote was unanimous across the eight universities, with Tertiary Education Union members saying they were angry and worried about the future of the sector.
Their wages weren’t keeping up with inflation, and they were watching colleagues leave the country – and sector – for better working conditions, according to the union’s media release.
The TEU’s Irena Brörens said they believed the request was “simply fair and reasonable at a time of unprecedented pressure on household budgets”.
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About 7000 employees were eligible to strike, and the action could see a halt to lectures during a time when students were preparing for exams.
Although the eight universities had different collective agreements, they were coordinating a strike to take place in unison.
The decision to strike followed a September 21 vote from union members.
Negotiations between the union and university sector began in July, but months later they had not reached an agreement.
Brörens said without the sector matching inflation, the universities were essentially offering “an effective pay cut”.
According to a recent report by Business and Economic Research Ltd, commissioned by the TEU, staffing costs across the universities had only increased by 7%, compared to a 45% increase in student fee revenue.
The data was collected over a 12-year period, where the average increase included 16.5% from Government funding and 48% from research revenue.
When the report was released in August, Rob Stowell, the University of Canterbury’s TEU branch president, called it “disturbing”.
“We’ve known for some time that our salaries have been falling behind our colleagues overseas and in other professions but to see such hard data that shows the extent to which we’re being deprioritiesd by our employers is a real kick in the guts,” he said, as part of the TEU’s August media release.
