The union representing the University of Newcastle academic staff fears a significant number of contracted employees will lose their jobs in the next six months.
It comes as the university seeks to become compliant with the federal government's Closing the Loopholes legislation, which affects how it engages casual and fixed term employees.
Under the changes, casual employment can only be used on an 'by-the-hour' basis. It means a casual employee cannot be given a definitive semester-long contract setting out hours in advance.
Because of this, the university has changed its terminology from casual contract to letter of employment, however, it does not change the conditions of employment for casual staff.
The legislation also requires employers take into account the real substance, practical reality and true nature of the relationship when classifying work.
University chief operating officer David Toll said preliminary assessments indicated approximately 90 per cent of fixed term staff agreements were already compliant with the new Fair Work Act requirements.
"We continue to assess casual contract compliance. We are also reviewing our complex mix of employment arrangements to ensure compliance with the new legislative requirements and our enterprise agreements. We will have this matter resolved for the start of 2025," he said.
The National Tertiary Education Union argues the university should strive to provide secure work to employees performing 'continuing indefinite work' and only use casual employment for genuinely casual work.
"Employees at universities have suffered under an explosion of casualisation. The reason for that is the universities wanted the flexibility to be able to adjust to student numbers as they saw fit," NTEU Newcastle branch president Terry Summers said.
"This legislation and enterprise agreements have sought to address the precarity of work for many university employees. But what that now means is the university is nervous about employing people on fixed term contracts because they're worried that they might have to make them permanent."
Associate professor Summers said the union had evidence that the changes were already resulting in a form of back door job losses.
"It's a sad and unintended consequence of the legislation and out enterprise agreement clauses because some very good people have and will lose their jobs."
Mr Toll said the university would continue to have a workforce consisting of ongoing, fixed term and casual employees to meet its operational needs, with staff supported to ensure appropriate management of workloads.
"We have a legal requirement to make these changes. Any staff member impacted by the legislative changes will be notified in coming months and provided with the opportunity to discuss the options available to them," he said.
Associate professor Summers said the situation had arisen primarily because the federal government had "done an extraordinarily bad job" at funding universities.
"We almost have a situation where universities don't know where their next coin is coming from," he said.
"Student fees, which are needed to fund operations, have been very light on in recent times. It puts the university between a rock and a hard place. It has all sorts of implications."
