About 1600 Dunedin tertiary staff will become members of a new union next year.
The New Zealand Tertiary Education Union, to be formed through the amalgamation of the Association of University Staff (AUS) and the Association of Staff in Tertiary Education (ASTE), will have more than 11,500 academic and general staff members nationally and will be the largest union operating in the tertiary sector.
A set of draft rules was agreed earlier this month following a meeting between the council and national executive of the two unions.
The new union will involve about 1250 AUS members at the University of Otago and about 350 ASTE members from Otago Polytechnic.
A third tertiary union - the Tertiary Institutes Allied Staff Association, decided against joining.
The merger had been in the pipeline for about two years and had been decided after voting at branch level, AUS past president Shane Montague-Gallagher said.
"The aim is to gain efficiencies and synergies . . . We wanted the tertiary sector to be seen as united."
In the long term, it was expected more resources available to develop policies and strategies would lead to a stronger wage-bargaining position, he said.
The New Zealand Tertiary Education Union will hold its inaugural conference in late November and become fully operational on January 1.
