November: Teachers' Stopwork Meetings

With the O'Farrell government's failure to both provide a fair and reasonable salaries offer to school, TAFE and other public education teachers, and to commence negotiations,  Federation Council decided unanimously on Saturday that broadcast stopwork meetings of all members for up to two hours will be held on Wednesday, 2 November.

At these meetings members will consider any offer from the government, as well as hear reports on any negotiations which are underway. If no offer is available, the meetings will consider recommendations for further industrial action.

To date there has been no evidence of government compliance with its own wages policy which requires bargaining parameters to be approved three months before an award expires and before an offer is made, and that parties should approach bargaining in "a cooperative and problem solving manner….in an open manner, with integrity and honesty." Instead, with the failure to make any offer and the recent changes to the employment arrangements of thousands of TAFE teachers without notice or negotiation, it seems that the government is more intent on disrupting and delaying negotiations than progressing them.

Award negotiations typically take many months. If no new awards are in place once the current awards expire on 31 December, the government stands to save millions of dollars at the expense of teachers.

The government must ensure that professional and attractive salaries are maintained if NSW public schools are to be properly staffed with appropriately qualified and experienced teachers. The NSW government and the Minister for Education Adrian Piccoli are called on to provide the Federation with a fair and reasonable salaries offer and to commence negotiations immediately.

In this vodcast, Federation President, Bob Lipscombe provides more information about this Council decision. Venues and arrangements for broadcast meetings will be forwarded to workplaces as soon as available.

Further information can be found at the NSW Teachers Federation website