The CSIRO is preparing to axe dozens more scientists through its restructure of two research units, as staff pursue better job security through enterprise bargaining – and reserve their right to go on strike.
Staff Association secretary Susan Tonks said the latest job cuts “are deeply concerning and bitterly disappointing.”
“It’s little wonder that CSIRO’s own survey results show that more than half of staff are unsure or are not in favour of the agency’s strategic direction,” Ms Tonks said.
“The Australian community has a right to be concerned about our nation’s science capability and CSIRO’s senior leaders have some explaining to do.”
The proposed redundancies are split between the biosecurity (47 full-time equivalent) and technology (39 FTE) research units (about 100 people), researchers were told on Wednesday.
The agency is also consulting on “minor proposed structural changes” to its energy research unit.
It will not reduce its overall staffing, as the agency embarks on a hiring spree to fill about 150 roles aligned with its new “strategic direction and national priorities,” a spokesperson said.
The CSIRO’s annual report tabled in the Parliament this week shows it spent $59 million on redundancy payments to cut 1150 jobs over the last two years.
The association believes hundreds more scientists were lost at the CSIRO through the non-renewal of specified term employment contracts.
Ms Tonks said the union had “put employment security on the agenda for enterprise agreement negotiations and reserve our rights to take action to protect CSIRO jobs.”
A CSIRO spokesperson said the proposed changes were “designed to better align our capability with our strategic priorities and increase our impact” and were “not driven by a need to reduce CSIRO’s overall workforce or costs.”
“CSIRO’s overall workforce size is expected to remain stable,” the spokesperson said.
“We are continuing to invest in the capabilities CSIRO will need for the future.”
With negotiations over a new enterprise bargaining agreement under way, the union has lodged claims for specified term employment and a pathway to permanency for casual and specified term employees after 12 months’ service.
The union has also lodged a claim for the CSIRO to “work with the union to take all available steps to reduce job losses and mitigate the impact of restructures on employees.”
The CSIRO spokesperson said it welcomed the union “sharing more details of its claims” and would “continue to hold open discussions in good faith” as bargaining continued.
The latest cuts being considered by the national science agency are despite a $620 million funding boost in the May federal budget, which Dr Hilton has said would make the organisation sustainable – but did not rule out further cuts.
Research areas to be affected by the changes at both units include medical bio-imaging, health service research, advanced materials and processing, materials characterisation and modelling, software and computational systems.
The agency merged its Data61 and manufacturing research units into the new technology unit earlier this year before announcing a review its tech economy research area.
The CSIRO spokesperson said the review had “reinforced the importance of technology both as a research discipline in its own right and as a critical enabler of science across CSIRO.”
“We are therefore proposing to sharpen the technology research unit’s focus on core technology research, while embedding enabling capabilities more closely with domain science across CSIRO, where they can help accelerate research impact,” they said.
The biosecurity unit was moving away from “research focused exclusively on human health and instead focus on One Health, an area where CSIRO is uniquely positioned to bring together research at the intersection of human, animal, plant and environmental health.”
“As part of early engagement with staff, CSIRO investigated the feasibility of transferring digital health capability to an independent statutory body,” the spokesperson said.
“Ultimately, this transfer was not considered viable and is not proceeding. We are therefore proposing to redirect some of our digital health capability to a new Digital Intelligence program focused on One Health challenges.”
Formal consultation on the proposals with staff, stakeholders and unions would “inform final outcomes” to be made in December.
Ms Tonks said union representatives “will be meeting with CSIRO executive with the aim of minimising these job cuts by redeploying staff to other research units.”
ACT independent senator David Pocock said he was “gutted to see our national science organisation keep losing talented scientists and expertise built up over decades.”
“This is short-term thinking at its worst,” Senator Pocock said. “We need to be building our scientific, research and development capacity and lifting our R&D spend more than ever before to confront the challenges facing us.”
Senator Pocock, whose petition supporting the CSIRO has received more than 23,404 signatures, said the latest cuts would be “devastating for those impacted, our wider community and our sovereign scientific capability.”
“Ongoing cuts and the timing of these layoffs in the leadup to Christmas is having a devastating impact on the scientists we need to overcome the huge challenges we face,” he said. “I’ll be taking this up with CSIRO at estimates.”
The agency will appear on Thursday evening.