Dr Shoshana Dreyfus is sick and tired of busting a gut for a Vice-Chancellor who is "intent on attacking the very staff responsible for University of Wollongong's ongoing success".
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
"[Paul Wellings] can't on the one hand congratulate staff for managing to get the university into the top 200 and then with the other hand attack staff by saying the only possible way to fix the $90 million blackhole is to cut staff," the senior linguistics lecturer said.
"Other universities are doing a variety of things to deal with the lack of revenue from international students as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Cutting staff is not the only option."
Dr Dreyfus said she would be willing to take a 10 per cent pay cut if there was a 10 per cent cut across all the university's finances, including investments and capital works.
"If you read the university financial report you can see that the university actually has a decent investment portfolio," she said.
"I would be happy to take a pay cut if it looked like there was 10 per cent being cut from everything in the university from the capital works, from the finances, from the investments, from whatever else is in there - which we don't know because [Wellings] is not showing us.
"But I'm not happy to take a 10 per cent pay cut when it is only staff that bear the brunt."
Dr Dreyfus said the hard-working staff had been especially busting their guts this semester transferring from face-to-face teaching to providing online learning.
She said students, particularly first year students were "barely coping" with the transition to online learning and were relying on their lecturers more than ever.
"We are working six, sometimes seven days and nights but the reward we get is to have our jobs cut," Dr Dreyfus said.
"It is the classic case of you are punishing the very people who are doing the work for you and expecting them to suck it up. Saying to staff do you want 10 per cent pay cut, 15 per cent pay cut or no cuts but hundreds of job losses, when there are no other choices on offer, does not honour the hard work we are doing with increasingly fewer resources.
"We want the vice-chancellor to make visible all the possible options not just the attack on staff options.
"We want genuine consultation. We are not a company. He is not a CEO of a company."