OZschwitz University Prohibits Academic Freedom

NEW academics at the University of Wollongong are being forced to accept Australian Workplace Agreements, which their union says do not guarantee academic freedoms.

The university is also following the lead of several corporations, such as Telstra, BHP-Billiton and the Commonwealth Bank - and the Federal Government's Australian Building and Construction Commission - in trying to lock staff into individual agreements before legislation outlaws them later this year.

The National Tertiary Education Union's industrial officer, Ken McAlpine, told the Herald that new staff in the university's graduate school of medicine had no option but to sign the AWAs.

"It's a condition of getting the job," Mr McAlpine said.

A clause in the existing enterprise agreement, he added, specified that staff must have a choice between an AWA and a collective contract.

The university has admitted interpreting the clause as applying only to existing employees. The deputy vice-chancellor, John Patterson, said it did not apply to staff recruited from outside the university. "We believe that we've acted totally in accordance with our obligations," Professor Patterson said.

The union says the AWAs, which could lock a signatory in for up to five years, would deny new staff potential improvements in conditions, such as redundancy entitlements.

However, they pointedly exclude protections for academic freedom. The collective agreement, which covers 97 per cent of teaching and research staff, explicitly protects those academics who "participate in public debates and express opinions, including unpopular and controversial opinions about issues and ideas".

Five years ago Wollongong University lost a battle with one of its associate professors, Dr Ted Steele, who the federal court ruled had been unfairly dismissed for publicly criticising soft marking practices at the university. The university reinstated Dr Steele after a 15-month political and legal battle with the union, which had argued his dismissal violated the collective agreement.

The termination provisions in the AWAs allow the university to dismiss academics if their "conduct is unsatisfactory", which Mr McAlpine said could lead to the sacking of staff whose research offended governments or corporate sponsors. "The university is taking a deliberate decision to excise these rights from AWAs to avoid any repeat of the problems they had with the Steele case," he said.

Professor Patterson insisted academic freedom applied to all Wollongong staff, regardless of their employment contract, but said it would require an industrial lawyer to explain why the AWAs could not enshrine such freedoms.

In a statement issued last night, the university said the medical faculty had been using AWAs for the past two years.

"The practice has enabled the university to attract highly competent, highly professional staff from around the world who are employed under conditions equivalent to all other members of the university community," it said.

Link.

OZschwitz... that fucking penal colony... I hear they have more public sector workers per head of population than any country on earth!!! There's more government parasites living off producers there, than even in that frigging communistic hell hole called China! Motherfucking Awesome!

And look at their collectivistic propaganda. This is their atonal, national mickey mouse anthem:

Australian National Anthem
"Advance Australia Fair"
words and music composed by
Peter Dodds McCormick
proclaimed Australia's National Anthem
by the Governor - General
on 19th April 1984

Australians all let us rejoice
For we are young and free
We've golden soil and wealth for toil,
Our home is girt by sea:
Our land abounds in nature's gifts
Of beauty rich and rare,
In history's page let every stage
Advance Australia fair,
In joyful strains then let us sing
Advance Australia fair.

Beneath our radiant Southern Cross,
We'll toil with hearts and hands,
To make this Commonwealth of ours
Renowned of all the lands,
For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share,
With courage let us all combine
To advance Australia fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia fair.

Pathetic!

And they call it "The Lucky Country!"

SUCKERS!!!

But it conforms to the standards of the sheeple...

And I hear they have plenty of those...

OZschwitz University Prohibits Academic Freedom

OZschwitz University Prohibits Academic Freedom

Anarcho-Capitalist Categorical Imperatives

AnCaps & Psychology, Edumbcation, Even IndoctriNation