An industrial ban on the release of Monash University student results has been lifted, after being overturned in a successful appeal to the Fair Work Commission.
About 13,000 students are still awaiting their semester one results, due to the National Tertiary Education Union’s release ban, imposed as part of protected action to force Monash back into enterprise bargaining negotiations.
In a letter welcoming FWA’s decision, circulated through the Monash network on Tuesday, Monash Provost and Senior Vice President Edwina Cornish said the university would request staff withholding results to release them immediately.
Professor Cornish said all outstanding results would be released by noon Thursday, 22 August, after undergoing checks and validation through each faculty’s Board of Examiners, noting students would be notified of any unforeseen timeline changes.
However NTEU Victorian secretary Colin Long said the union’s Gippsland branch decided to voluntarily lift the results release ban on Monday night, because Monash had agreed to return to negotiations.
“To be back bargaining is a good thing; while we are disappointed about FWA’s decision finding against us, we could still re-appeal if we need to go down this path again during this dispute,” Mr Long said, ruling out a potential ban being re-applied to the release of semester one results.
“I think while the student union supported the ban, who understood why we were taking the action, there’s no doubt, some students were angry; while its very difficult for us to take industrial action without hurting students, our work is fundamentally about improving student conditions – it’s short term pain for long term gain.
Mr Long said the dispute was fundamentally about improving the “ever-growing” workloads and casualisation of the workforce.
