HEWRRs Goes
13th February 2008
University funding will no longer be tied to universities offering AWAs to their employees, under legislation introduced to Parliament by Education Minister Julia Gillard this afternoon.
Gillard said in her second reading speech today that the Higher Education Support Amendment (Removal of Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements and National Governance Protocols Requirements and Other Matters) Bill repealed s33.17 of the Higher Education Support Act.
That provision, she said, required higher education providers to meet the Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements and the National Governance Protocols in order to receive Commonwealth Grant Scheme funding for student places.
Under the HEWRRs, universities had to provide:
- choice in agreement-making, including offering AWAs;
- direct relationships with employees, with third parties involved only at the employee's request;
- workplace flexibility tailored to the needs of the employer and employee and extending to barring employment instruments from limiting the "forms and mix of employment arrangements";
- productivity and performance, including fair and transparent performance management schemes that rewarded high performers; and
- freedom of association, including neither discouraging or encouraging union membership, and barring using Commonwealth grants to pay salaries of union employees or to support union facilities.
Gillard said the HEWRRs required universities to implement the Howard Government's "ideologically-driven" IR agenda.
