University of Wollongong job cuts climb to more than 270 as non-academic staff let go
Academics at the University of Wollongong have likened the organisation's restructure to the fictional Hunger Games. (ABC Illawarra: Justin Huntsdale)
In short:
The University of Wollongong is set to cut up to 10 per cent of its non-academic staff in Australia, or around 185 jobs.
It comes on top of a confirmed plan to cut 95 academic jobs, bringing to total number of job cuts to 276.
What's next?
Students are worried about the impact on their education and say there is growing disquiet on campus.
The University of Wollongong (UOW) has announced up to 10 per cent of non-academic staff are set to lose their jobs in the latest round of redundancies.
The university has announced plans to cut up to another 180 jobs as part of a major restructure, bringing total job losses this year to around 276.
In January, UOW confirmed plans to cut 91 full-time equivalent academic positions after a $35 million revenue drop, partly due to federal visa and migration changes affecting international student numbers.
"UOW is facing significant financial challenges, in part due to the Australian government's changes to visa processing and migration policy and a sharp reduction in international students numbers," a statement from the university said.
University of Wollongong has campuses around the world but is under pressure over staff cuts in Australia. (ABC Illawarra: Justin Huntsdale)
Interim Vice Chancellor Senior Professor Eileen McLaughlin was unavailable to comment today.
The university also said it planned to reduce its faculties from four to three, and cut the number of schools from 18 to 11, aiming to save between $22 million and $26 million.
UOW said affected staff had been notified.
Union concerns
Troy Wright from the Community and Public Sector Union, representing non-academic staff, said the way the cuts were being handled was appalling.
"The communication wasn't complete, it was sent late, people were still scratching their head at 3 o'clock in the afternoon wondering if they were affected or not.
"The email was incomplete and had links in it saying go here, go there for further information which were broken."
Mr Wright accused the university of breaching its own core functions.
"The University of Wollongong was established under a state act and that state act specifically states that the university has a specific function in providing education and research with regards to the needs of the Illawarra region," he said.
"What we all want is for the university to explain how these cuts are consistent with that act."
He said while cuts were being made at the main campus in Wollongong, international campuses in the UAE, Hong Kong, India and Malaysia remained untouched.
UOW is also expanding into Liverpool in Western Sydney.
"We think these cuts go to the very heart of questioning what is the purpose of the university,"he said.
Students worried about impact on education
Students at UOW were worried about what the cuts would mean for their education.
Hiba Shahbaz, studying for a Bachelor of Communications and Media, said she was seeing growing disquiet on the main campus.
Hiba Shahbaz says the cuts are concerning. (ABC Illawarra: Mikayla Mcguirk-Scalaro)
"I am seeing a lot of rallies in campus, which is pretty interesting and pretty concerning, especially for students who want to study a specific course that isn't able to be run because of the cuts," she said.
Antonios Tzamouranis is an elected official with the Wollongong University Students Association (WUSA) and an Arts-Law student.
Antonios Tzamouranis says there has been virtually no consultation with students. (ABC Illawarra: Mikayla Mcguirk Scalaro)
He said as far as he was concerned, there was very little consultation taking place with students.
"They haven't approached us in any real meaningful way with the student union WUSA," he said.
"We have had very little to no contact with university management on how they are going about the cuts."