15/07/2025
๐๐๐'๐ฌ ๐ซ๐๐๐ฎ๐๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง ๐ข๐ง ๐ฃ๐จ๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ญ๐ฌ ๐๐ฅ๐๐ฌ๐ญ๐๐ ๐๐ฒ ๐ฌ๐ญ๐๐๐ ๐ฎ๐ง๐ข๐จ๐ง ๐๐ฌ '๐๐จ๐ซ๐ฉ๐จ๐ซ๐๐ญ๐ ๐ฌ๐ฉ๐ข๐ง'
Illawarra Mercury 15 July 2025
by Ben Langford
News that the UOW: University of Wollongong, has reduced the number of jobs to be cut has not impressed the staff union, which has blasted UOW's move as "corporate spin".
The university's "revised change proposal" for cuts to professional services staff, released late on Monday, has brought the maximum number of jobs to be lost down to 124.
When this process began in late March, UOW had 185 full-time-equivalent positions as its upper number of jobs to go in a bid to save up to $30 million.
The change followed months of consultation with staff, with about 2600 submissions received.
But with up to 124 jobs still on the chopping block, the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) said there was no way losing one tenth of the workforce made a better university - and staff should not be expected to believe it would.
About 90 academics lost their jobs in January in cuts to teaching and research under former vice-chancellor John Dewar.
Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU NSW) Assistant Secretary Troy Wright said the announcement was "just the latest attempt" by UOW to rebrand bad news.
"University of Wollongong management must stop gaslighting its staff by telling them that job cuts will be good for the university," he said.
"Anyone who's run a business knows if you cut close to one in 10 staff you're going to have to reduce services, but University of
Wollongong management keep claiming services will stay the same even after job cuts.
"UOW management claiming 'look we've saved 60 jobs' because they've revised the number of people they'll sack from 185 to 124, that's the kind of corporate spin that really upsets the community."
Mr Wright said the university's annual reports showed deficits that had been of university management's own doing, yet staff were paying the price.
"Look at the UOW's books and you'll see massive cost overruns, in the 2023 year there was a $39 million deficit," he said.
"But their spending on consultants and international and domestic travel were enormous and these are the kind of costs you drop before you cut staff."
UOW has blamed a drop in international student revenue for its financial problems. But as the Mercury reported in June, this was called into question by UOW's own annual report which found international student revenue grew, not fell, in 2024.
A report released in late May from the Australia Institute think tank found UOW spent $22 million on travel and consultants in 2023, a year before it announced a looming gap in its budget of about $35 million.
The $22 million amounted to "40 per cent of the $51 million that UOW hopes to save through two rounds of cuts, including to jobs", the institute's paper stated.
"If UOW had cut its travel and consulting costs in half for any three years between 2013 and 2023, it would have eliminated the shortfall that has been used to justify the disestablishment of culturally valuable disciplines and dozens of jobs," it said.
While interim vice-chancellor Professor Dewar froze travel as he sought to cut spending, UOW then brought in one of the nation's largest consultancy firms, KordaMentha, of which Professor Dewar is and was a partner, to design a restructure.
It is not yet known how much UOW will have paid KordaMentha by the time the job cut processes are over, but UOW put the cost of its academic and professional restructures at $50 million, much of which will be redundancy payments.
The current round of job cuts, out for formal consultation until August 5, will be finalised on August 25, UOW said. It aims to save $17-22 million; the previous proposal, which would have cut up to 185 jobs, aimed to save $30 million.
New Vice-Chancellor G.Q. Max Lu thanked UOW staff for their contributions and feedback.
"I am deeply grateful for the thoughtful feedback and engagement we've received across our university community," Professor Lu said.
"This is a difficult process, but the feedback from staff has helped shape a proposal that responds to current challenges while positioning us for sustainable growth and impact."
Telling staff that job cuts will be good for the university is 'gaslighting', union says.
