Australian universities are overhauling their casual staffing amid legislation that entitles workers to apply for permanent jobs after six months of insecure employment.
University administrators say the new arrangements will ensure compliance with the law while reducing their reliance on precariously employed academics. Union representatives claim executives are cutting costs by foisting more teaching work on to permanent staff under cover of legislative change.
Macquarie, Monash and Newcastle universities are among the institutions reviewing their casual staffing. Macquarie’s Faculty of Arts will only allow casual appointments “by exception” for people with specialist industry expertise or externally funded jobs.
“Macquarie University is implementing measures to more closely regulate the engagement of casual academic staff from 2025 and create opportunities for more secure…employment,” a spokeswoman said.
Monash has replaced its “periodic academic employment” category with “continuing (defined period) academic employment” (CDPAE) – a new work mode offering “continuing part-time employment” where staff are needed for “discrete teaching periods” and perform at least 60 per cent of a full-time workload “during defined work periods”, according to Monash’s enterprise agreement.
Ben Eltham, Monash branch president of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), said the university had massive capital works commitments and planned to save money by scrapping casual contracts....
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