48-hour strike goes ahead at Sydney University - ABC Online

Posted March 26, 2013 08:42:05

Sydney University management is encouraging all staff and students to turn up to classes today, despite a 48-hour strike.

Unions say staff voted for the two-day strike from today, after rejecting the latest employment offer.

University management is playing down the anticipated level of disruption, but cannot guarantee all classes will be staffed.

Spokesman Andrew Potter has also hit back at the union's claims that the employment offer would lead to more casual workers and job insecurity.

"The irony of this enterprise bargaining discussion is that because the union's demanding such a high pay rise of 7 per cent, that would only lead significantly to greater casualisation and higher staff-student ratios - exactly the things the union's arguing against," he said.

Mr Potter says most classes will go ahead as scheduled.

"We can't guarantee that every member of staff will be there to take a class but, based on the figures from the last strike, we understand that less than 600 or our total 7000 staff members indicated they were on strike," he said.

"And on that basis we expect that most staff will in fact come to work and that scheduled classes and activities will continue."

This week's strike is the second in a month.

The Branch President of the Community and Public Sector Union Grant Wheeler says it is regrettable there will be further impact on students.

"The campus looked very much like ghost town on the 7th," he said.

"Certainly numbers in libraries and so on were down about 50 per cent, and we expect the same sort of impact today.

"It's regretful that we are impacting on students, but unfortunately the university has given us no choice in this matter."

Topics: university-and-further-education, sydney-2000