The national academics’ union is urging the university sector to pave the way for nation-leading gender affirmation leave in Australia.
The issue has been highlighted by University of Melbourne staff calling for paid gender transition leave as part of negotiations on a new three-year enterprise agreement, first reported by the Age.
The National Tertiary Education Union, which is representing staff, will also ask for employees to be given the right to reject 26 January as a public holiday and take their entitled leave on a different day.
The move would allow staff who viewed the date as “Invasion Day” and support the First Nations-driven movement to treat it as an ordinary working day.
But associate professor at University of Queensland’s law school Paul Harpur, warned swapping leave days could result in the number of public holidays being decreased in future enterprise negotiations.
“I don’t think it’s in the union’s best interests,’ he said.
“At the moment, it’s a legislated day, you’ve got to have legislative protection, if you reduce it to a bargaining, I think it could lead to unfortunate outcomes.”
The union’s log of claims propose 30 days of paid gender transition leave be made available to staff.
NTEU Victorian division assistant secretary, Sarah Roberts, said the university sector could become a leader on gender transition leave to allow them to undertake psychological and medical treatment.
“With gender affirmation leave, I think there’s a push across progressive areas to have this recognised as a form of leave,” she said.
“It was a kind of move in the trade union movement to recognise domestic violence leave in a similar way in past rounds of bargaining. And we see that more and more becoming commonplace in collective agreements across the economy.”
Roberts believed it was likely there would be interest from staff at other universities keen to pursue similar arrangements relating to the Australia Day public holiday.
“Given the level of public interest that there’s been in, it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s been other NTEU branches that prick up their ears and consider this to be an opportunity for them to pursue,” she said.
Roberts said it would allow staff the option to stand in solidarity and recognise the pain of their Indigenous colleagues, some of whom view 26 January as a day of mourning.
“In the union movement and across social movements, more generally, we talk about it as invasion day. In recognition of that day, being a day of the sorrow and horror and pain for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander colleagues,” she said.
Roberts said the idea stemmed from clauses in public service enterprise agreements. In the Victorian public service’s workplace agreement, employees can, in agreement with their employer, substitute another day for any public holidays to observe religious or cultural occasions or like reasons of significance to the employee. Some APS enterprise agreements contain a similar clause.
A spokesperson for the University of Melbourne said the NTEU has not yet shared its proposed claims with the institution.
“Nor has it responded to the University’s longstanding invitation to commence bargaining, which is the appropriate forum for discussing and resolving these matters,” they said.
“We look forward to bargaining in good faith with the union and staff on a new enterprise agreement.”
