Academic work, bargaining and regulation in Australian universities under the Howard Government

In April 2005 the Howard (Coalition) federal government released details of specific employment relations legislation to apply to universities in Australia. The Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements (HEWRRs) were allegedly needed for universities to become more productive, efficient, flexible and competitive by placing increased focus on ‘greater freedom, flexibility and individual choice’ (Andrews and Nelson 2005). Failure by universities to meet the HEWRRs resulted in a reduction of federal government funding. This paper examines the alleged lack of flexibility within Australian higher education by considering the workload regulation of 10 Australian university collective agreements. Ten agreements in operation before the commencement of the HEWRRs (2004) were compared with 10 agreements from the same universities that were ‘HEWRRs compliant’ in 2006. The analysis suggests that collective bargaining in Australian universities already provided management with significant flexibility, and was not enhanced by the HEWRRs in any noticeable way