Late last year, the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) initiated a process to eliminate 170 academic jobs to cut costs. The Employment Relations Authority (ERA) found AUT’s approach breached its collective employment agreement with staff and their union and ordered it to withdraw the termination notices.

Tertiary education runs on an insecure labour force in New Zealand and elsewhere. The AUT decision illustrates that even traditionally secure positions are becoming less so.

Tenure is the traditional protection for academics in the tertiary sector, but New Zealand does not have tenure at its universities.

Tenure is more than a perk

A common argument against tenure is that it leads to a complacent, under-motivated university professor. These concerns are hypothetical — evidence that tenure causes productivity differences is lacking.

In fact, one of few large studies on the subject found the opposite. Good administrators should be able to manage any actual productivity issues as they do in all other workplaces.

On the other hand, lack of tenure creates risks for free societies. Tenure is common practice in other liberal democracies. UNESCO says:

Security of employment in the profession, including tenure […] should be safeguarded as it is essential to the interests of higher education.

Tenure is important, if not indispensable, for academic freedom. Academic freedom is essential to a university’s mission, and this mission is a characteristic of a democracy. As University of Regina professor Marc Spooner put it:

A country’s institutional commitment to academic freedom is a key indicator of whether its democracy is in good health.

The Employment Relations Authority has issued a compliance order to the university, requiring it to withdraw its notices of termination. https://t.co/NUvBfqS6ad

— Stuff (@NZStuff) January 5, 2023

Scholarship is not piecework
The ERA said AUT misunderstood terminology in the collective employment agreement.
The clash term was “specific position”. AUT’s position was that specific positions are identified by professional ranks (from lecturer to professor) and the numbers of each role across four particular faculties.

The ERA did not agree and concluded an essential component for identifying specific positions is the employee, being the person who is the current position holder or appointee to a position.

AUT’s assertion would be like the air force using the rank of “captain” to adjust its number of pilots. The number of captains does not tell you what each captain does, be it to fly planes or fix them.

Without tenure, a standard less than this minimum established by the ERA can be used to eliminate academics who have legitimate priorities that do not align with the administrative staff of the day, or are the victims of any other concealed discrimination. The ERA clarification makes it more difficult to inhibit intramural criticism, the right to criticise the actions taken by managers and leaders of the university.

The authoritative review of freedom of speech and academic freedom in Australian universities singles out the importance of academic freedom for this purpose, saying:

It […] reflects the distinctive relationship of academic staff and universities, a relationship not able to be defined by reference to the ordinary law of employer and employee relationships.

The ERA clarification helps to prevent the firing of academics who are teaching, researching or questioning things administrators, funders or governments don’t want them to. But it is a finger in a leaking dyke. Tenure is a tried and tested general solution.

Health of the democracy
We only need to observe the events in the United States to recognise the importance of tenure. This benchmark country has a proud tradition of tenure. Nevertheless state governments are dismantling tenure to impose political control on curriculums. Our liberal democracy is not immune to this.

We need more than tenure-secured academic freedom to enable universities to do the sometimes dreary and at other times risky work of providing societies alternatives to populist, nationalist or autocratic movements. But as the Douglas Dillon chair in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, Darrell M. West, wrote, academic freedom is a problem for these movements.

Recognizing the moral authority of independent experts, when despots come to power, one of the first things they do is discredit authoritative institutions who hold leaders accountable and encourage an informed citizenry.

In a system with tenure, a university would have a defined stand-down period preventing reappointment to vacated positions. For example, if an academic program and associated tenured staff that teach it were eliminated at the University of Arkansas for financial reasons, the program could not be reactivated for at least five years. The stand-down inhibits whimsical or agenda-fuelled restructuring as a lazy option to manage staff.

If a similar trade-off were to be applied to how AUT defined specific positions, then no academics could be hired there for five years. It is very different to be prevented from hiring academics than it is to, say, not re-establishing a financially struggling department or program.

Herein lies the true value of tenure. It is greater than a protection of the individual. It protects society from wasteful or ideologically motivated restructuring as an alternative to poor management. Tenure is security of the public trust in our universities.

Dr Jack Heinemann is professor of molecular biology and genetics, University of Canterbury. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Employment Relations Authority (ERA) has knocked-back an attempt by one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest universities to axe more than 100 staff.

The Auckland University of Technology planned to make 170 academic staff redundant, but the ERA has now ruled that its process was flawed and breached the collective agreement.

Now the school may need to walk back its dismissals, and start all over again.

ERA said AUT had called for voluntary redundancies too early, before the institution had even decided which positions to cull.

The Tertiary Education Union (TEU) is celebrating the ruling as a win. However, AUT says the union and the university have interpreted the decision differently and it would be seeking clarification.

Lawyer Peter Cranney, in an email to members of the TEU yesterday, said the ERA was considering a compliance order that would require AUT to withdraw all the notices it had already issued.

“Although a compliance order is discretionary, the [ERA] authority has indicated it will not decline the granting of the order it needed,” he wrote.

“The parties will now have three days to consider the matter; and if a compliance order is necessary, the AUT will need to comply within five days.”

Cranney said any compliance order would be issued by Friday.

Trust difficult to rebuild, says union organiser
TEU organiser Jill Jones said the decision meant people at risk of losing their jobs no longer were.

“It’s great because what it does show is our collective agreement has been respected by the Employment Relations Authority,” Jones told RNZ Morning Report.

But although staff members were “absolutely” thrilled with the decision of the ERA, there was a breakdown of trust with their employer and it would be difficult to rebuild it.

“Its been a long, hard road for these staff members. They’ve paid a very large price.

“These are members that really, really care about their students and the high price that they’ve paid for this bungled redundancy is that lots of things have happened.

“It’s felt as if, to them, it’s been a very callous and uncaring process and it’s going to be difficult to come back from that.”

With issues of trust and many staff feeling targeted and bullied, AUT had a “very big job” ahead to rebuild that trust, she said.

Frances* was one of the unlucky 170 to receive a redundancy letter.

“This level of disruption and instability in our lives is just crippling,” she said.

The ERA decision had not brought much comfort.

“It’s kind of a double-edged sword,” she said. “I’m really happy that we’ve seen some justice be recognised through the court system, but I don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

Frances expected AUT to withdraw her notice of dismissal, but did not expect a happy ending.

“I’m not deluded, they’re still going to come for me I’m sure, but they’ll have to start from scratch and do it properly,” she said.

“That’s all we ask, that this is done properly.”

Poor handling of the situation had destroyed staff morale, she said.

“For three months, I’ve been feeling disengaged, demotivated, angry, upset, waiting, waiting, waiting for this letter,” she said.

“This whole process has been about targeting, humiliating, and bullying people.”

AUT seeks clarification of ‘complex findings’
An AUT spokesperson said the findings were legally complex and it regretted that a “procedural issue” highlighted had made staff more uncertain.

“Although the ERA has published its findings, it has not issued orders.

“AUT’s view of these findings differs from that of the TEU. AUT is endeavouring to clarify and resolve the issue promptly.

“Given the differing views between the parties it will therefore be necessary to return to the ERA tomorrow for clarification on some aspects.”

AUT said ERA’s findings found no bad faith in how it had acted — and AUT had formed a differing view of the collective agreement.

“The ERA has noted that AUT should have identified the specific positions potentially declared surplus and, at this point, written to offer voluntary redundancy to the people in these specified positions.

“Following clarification of the procedural issue we will write to those impacted by the decision to confirm the way forward.”

* Name changed to protect identity. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz