Classes are set to be cancelled for hundreds of students at SAE University College campuses across Australia, with staff launching strike action.
National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) members at SAE University College will walk off the job on Tuesday as their push for reasonable workloads and a fair pay rise escalates.
Almost all classes in Perth during the five-hour strike are expected to be affected, with NTEU members at the Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Byron Bay campuses also taking industrial action.
Staff will also ramp up work bans including an indefinite stop to using online systems to mark attendance and a week-long refusal to use internal communications platform Slack.
In the lead up to the strike action, SAE's senior management team sent misleading communications to students that backfired and resulted in an outpouring of support for the teachers.
SAE is offering staff a pay rise just 1.1% above the minimum legal amount they must be paid under the award.
It has represented to staff that the payrise is 2.5%, by misleadingly counting award-mandated leave loading.
The pay offer was unanimously rejected by NTEU members earlier this month.
Management has also refused to budge on maximum class sizes and teaching caps designed to reduce out-of-control workloads.
NTEU National President Dr Alison Barnes said:
"This is the second time in less than three months staff have been left with no choice other than to vote to go on strike.
"SAE staff are incredibly passionate about students' outcomes, which are at risk without meaningful progress on reasonable working conditions and a fair pay rise.
"SAE management's conduct has been nothing short of insulting. They unilaterally cancelled bargaining meetings before pulling out of negotiations altogether, and threatened to put their terrible pay offer to a vote without the union's approval.
"Staff deserve a pay rise that helps them keep up with the spiralling cost of living, but SAE is offering just a fraction above the legal minimum award rate.
"SAE management could avoid this strike action and any disruptions to classes by ending its refusal to budge on reasonable workloads and a fair pay rise."
A student at SAE, who did not wish to be named, said:
"The facilitators, support and service staff at SAE put in tremendous amounts of time and care to make students' study-life balance as easy as they possibly can. The fact that they need to fight for better workloads and appropriate pay is appalling and the student body universally is disappointed that industrial action needs to happen in order for changes to be implemented."
