Staff and hundreds of courses slashed at universities across the country

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Battlelines are being drawn on university campuses with thousands of staff sacked and courses cut in the biggest shake up since the pandemic.  Unions are blaming corporate managers, accusing them of cutting deeper than they need to, while university leaders say they're doing their best with a perfect storm of challenges.

Transcript

00:00Ukrainian Australian physicist Ivan Maximov makes discoveries everywhere. An experiment

00:09involving earthworms, alcohol and a speaker in his backyard led to mapping sound waves

00:14in the brain and global recognition. It's just one of many awards, but it hasn't spared

00:20the Charles Sturt University researcher from the axe.

00:23It's the second redundancy in less than three years and it derails my career.

00:33He now faces a job search in the toughest university environment in years and he's worried about

00:38the toll it will take on his family.

00:40I'm the only breadwinner so it's the only source of income and we have two kids to feed.

00:49Dr Alison Barnes from the National Tertiary Education Union estimates almost 3,600 university

00:54workers across five states and territories have lost their jobs over the past year.

01:00It's like a dark cloud hanging over our workplaces and people are not coping with the uncertainty

01:05and the stress and that's impacting on their wellbeing, it impacts on our students.

01:09A long running Senate inquiry into university governance has heard allegations management

01:14decisions about staff cuts are leaving staff mentally distressed. Unions say there is plenty

01:20of other fat for universities to cut.

01:22It's the executive remuneration with over 306 people employed at universities earning more

01:29than their state premiers.

01:32University leaders say they don't like the job cuts either, but are facing a perfect storm

01:36of funding challenges. Weak domestic and international student growth as well as a funding system

01:42that doesn't pay for the full cost of teaching.

01:44I think this is the most seriously economically challenged time for universities in living memory.

01:51Griffith University Vice Chancellor and Chair of Universities Australia Professor Carolyn Evans

01:56says unions should lobby for more funding instead of attacking managers.

02:00I think it's really quite extraordinary that the NTU is not recognising the genuinely difficult

02:07circumstances that universities find themselves in.

02:10With hundreds more job cuts expected next week, Harmony on campus is unlikely any time soon.

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