Like many other universities across the country, UTS is moving to axe jobs. It plans to cut 150 academics and 250 professional staff to make savings, after recording a deficit of $78 million last year.
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Last week, it was forced to press pause on its redundancy plans after the state’s health and safety watchdog said unexpected meeting invitations and “finalistic” language posed a serious risk of psychological harm to staff.
The institution’s vice-chancellor, Andrew Parfitt, told the Senate inquiry that the SafeWork order halting its redundancy plans had been lifted on Friday afternoon and said they would resume in a few weeks.
He also revealed that members of the university’s management would not be paid a bonus.
“The senior executive and the senior staff group have, in fact, now, will not now be paid any bonus or performance components, which is a saving across the university of about $2.5 million.”
The plan to axe staff has been mired in controversy, after reports of the university directing stressed staff to health advice instructing them to wash their clothes, to executives who splashed $20,000 on business class flights to the United States.
Greens senator Dr Mehreen Faruqi asked Parfitt about the insensitivity of directing staff to a third-party wellbeing resource with advice about “washing delegates, organising receipts for your taxes, or cleaning a bathroom”.
Parfitt said the purpose of the advice was to highlight the importance of routine and was not offered in response to the restructure plan. “I was disappointed that that one was on the website… that particular resource was removed,” he said.
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