University of Melbourne staff have voted to go on strike to protest what they say is an attack on free speech.
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Hundreds of academics and professional staff will walk off campus next Wednesday to oppose a proposed new workplace agreement put forward by the university.
The four-hour strike follows the university ditching a definition of academic and intellectual freedom in its proposed new workplace agreement.
The National Tertiary and Education Union says the changes will mean staff will have no legal protections if they make controversial or unwelcome public comments.
The union’s University of Melbourne branch secretary Steve Adams said staff were suspicious and anxious.
“We view it as a controlling measure,” he said.
“The university is saying, ‘we are watching what you say’.”
Mr Adams, who has worked as a lab technician at the university for 30 years, said he had no idea why the university was pushing ahead with the changes.
“Academic freedom allows staff to not be nervous about how they conduct their research and what they say and what they do.”
Staff voted to take the industrial action on Tuesday after 16 months of negotiating with the university.
Another sticking point is a proposal to split the agreement into two: one for academics and another for professional staff. Staff believe this will dilute their bargaining power.
The current agreement, which expired at the end of June, states that academic freedom lets staff "engage in critical enquiry, intellectual discourse and public controversy without fear or favour, but does not include the right to harass, intimidate or vilify".
This has been removed from the proposed new agreement.
The new agreement instead refers to the principle of academic freedom in a separate policy which it says it will “regard”.
It also states that academics exercising their right to freedom of expression, as set out in this separate policy, cannot be found to have engaged in misconduct.
But staff say this policy can be easily changed and provides them with no legal protections if they find themselves in trouble.
A university spokeswoman said the institution was committed to replacing an “outdated” industrial document with tailored, clear and modern agreements for academic and professional staff.
“Over the past 18 months the University has been working hard to effect this change, recognising this was never going to be an easy or quick bargaining process,” she said.
She said that academic freedom of expression was a core value of the university and enshrined in the council policy. She said the proposed agreement stated this commitment.
She said the university was confident its “mitigating actions” would result in minimal disruption to students.
Professor Christian Haesemeyer said the proposed changes went against the ideals of the modern university.
“Academic freedom is what sets us apart from schools...universities are a place of critical thinking in the community and that needs to be protected,” he said.
The mathematician said staff who worked in more politicised areas of the university were particularly worried.
“They are more likely to run into trouble,” he said.
Casualisation and short-term contracts have affected union membership. About 1500 of the university's 13,600 staff members belong to the union.
They have been asked to screen a slide presentation to their students on Monday that explains why they are taking industrial action.
Academic freedom continues to be an issue at universities.
In 2008 the University of Melbourne was accused of undermining academic freedom when it threatened to demote the late Paul Mees after receiving a complaint from the state government. At a public forum, the respected transport academic Dr Mees said the authors of a 2007 report on transport privatisation were "liars and frauds and should be in jail".
The issue was also raised when the University of Wollongong dismissed academic Ted Steele in 2001 after he alleged he had been ordered to mark up students’ work.
And in 2016 the co-founder of the controversial Safe Schools Coalition, Roz Ward, was suspended by La Trobe University after she called the Australian flag racist in a Facebook post.
