La Trobe University Albury-Wodonga job losses unknown, pay cuts vote to come

While it is still unknown if jobs will be lost at the Albury-Wodonga campus, National Tertiary Education Union branch president Virginia Mansel Lees, who is based at the Border university, said because the campus doesn't rely heavily on international students the impact could be less.

There could be 225 jobs saved under the agreement in which 74.3 per cent of NTEU members voted yes to.

The deal will reduce employees income by between 5 and 15 per cent, as the university looks at the financial toll of the COVID-19 pandemic. "Most people can see the jobs framework, is exactly that, a framework in which we will operate and it has a set of parameters around it," Ms Mansel Lees said.

"For someone on my level, the pay cut is 10 per cent, but that is pre-tax, after tax it comes down to about 7.4 per cent so if I can do that on the basis of someone else maintaining work than that is worth doing.

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"We have a fairly high casual and fixed term staff compliment across all areas of the university so different schools will be making decisions based on what their numbers looked like, how exposed they are to international students.

"We are not really exposed to international students at Albury-Wodonga, we might have one or two, but we aren't over exposed in that arena which is good."

When asked by The Border Mail, if any voluntary redundancies had been taken at the Albury-Wodonga campus, the university couldn't confirm.

"If voted in, the Australian Universities Job Protection Framework will deliver $32 million, the financial equivalent of about 225 jobs," a spokesperson said.

La Trobe Vice-Chancellor Professor John Dewar welcomed the majority yes vote by the union.

"It is a very encouraging sign that staff recognise the important job-saving benefits the framework offers," he said in a statement."

All La Trobe staff will have the opportunity to vote on the framework on June 16 and 17.