TAFE stopwork: Tuesday 11 August

An urgent stopwork meeting of TAFE teachers will commencing at 9:00 am, Tuesday 11 August against teaching load increases and job cuts.

In moves which reflect the apparent confusion and difficulty of dealing sensibly with the Department on TAFE, the DET has lodged 5 different positions on hours and conditions with the Industrial Relations Commission since May. Each sought different numbers of increased hours from members. The most recent (although it may not be the last), which was only received by the Federation late on Friday, 24 July, seeks the following:

• Increased annual actual teaching for temporary and permanent teachers by 71 hours. (The DET has previously sought up to 154 hours for head teachers and 118 hours for teachers.)
• removal of current limits on weekly teaching hours
• reduced professional development time for all Award classifications
• handing over control of the right to determine what teachers do in duties related to teaching time, from teachers to managers.

These changes result in savings to the Government far in excess of anything needed to fund the salary increases. They could result in thousands of part time casuals losing their jobs or having their hours and income drastically reduced, and/or hundreds of permanent teacher positions being made redundant or not filled.

Hear an update report and consider further action along with all the other statewide TAFE meetings. (Whether you are on duty or not, your attendance at this meeting is vital to send a strong message to the Government!)

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