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Salient. The Newspaper of Victoria University College. Vol. 20, No. 5. June 14, 1956
[Introduction]
The following article explaining the background to the recent successful claim for University staff salary increases was written by Mr. E. K. Braybrooke, lecturer in Law at VUC and president of the New Zealand Association of University teachers.
It is unusual for University teachers to engage collectively in polemics with the Government of the day. It is even more unusual for University teachers (at any rate in this country) to air publicly their dissatisfaction with their present economic position.
The tradition has been that University teachers, like scientists, think little of the material rewards but much more of the intrinsic interest of the job in hand and the contribution they are making; to the community at large. It might be well for this country if that tradition were not insisted upon too strongly; indeed, both scientists and University teachers have in recent years departed from it.
What then is the background to the claims of University teachers that their salaries should be increased substantially?
For the information of students, who themselves are vitally concerned in matters which affect the welfare of the University and the community, this is an attempt to outline briefly the problems which face University teachers. University authorities and the Government, in connection with University salaries.
The first factor to be considered is that the University competes for staff in an international market. It is obviously essential that the University in New Zealand shall be as well staffed—that is, staffed with teachers of as high a calibre—as are universities overseas.
That being the case it must compete with those universities for staff. It can only compete on equal terms if it can offer salaries and working conditions comparable with those which obtain in universities elsewhere in English-speaking countries. This simple truism formed the principal argument on which the salary claim just negotiated was based.