Union members at Federation University are calling for its Vice Chancellor Duncan Bentley to resign, after sweeping job cuts were announced last month.
The university has suffered a revenue loss of over $79 million over the past five years, leading to the announcement that around 200 jobs would be axed.
At a recent meeting, a majority of union members passed a motion calling for the resignation of the chancellor, along with the university’s chief financial officer John Blair, criticizing their record of financial management and declines in enrolments and revenue.
President of the university’s National Tertiary Education Union branch, Mathew Abbott, says a series of protests will be held over the coming weeks and months.
“We’re growing, we’re organized and union members are fed up with this mismanagement,” he said.
“We’ve proven ourselves to be quite effective in the past, we have actually forced the university to back down from damaging decisions before and that’s what we intend to do again.”
A spokesperson for Federation University said unlike some institutions during COVID, the university took the decision to prioritize their people and their communities, however student enrolment numbers have not recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
They say the action is required to secure a strong and sustainable future for the university and both the transformation program and the Vice-Chancellor have the full support of both the Chancellor and University Council.
