Finley High School teachers Judy Thomas-Meulman and Liz Marshall travelled 60 kilometres to attend the September 2 Sky Channel meeting at Deniliquin. Following the broadcast, a petition about staffing, salaries and TAFE qualifications, signed by the teachers at the Deniliquin meeting, was delivered to the Department of Education and Training's Deniliquin district office.

99.8 per cent support further action

By

Maree O'Halloran

Teachers have overwhelming condemned NSW Government policies on staffing, TAFE qualifications and salaries.

More than 99 per cent of Federation members who attended Sky Channel meetings on September 2 rejected the NSW Government's wages policy and the changes to the teacher transfer system, voting to support further industrial action as necessary.

This was an overwhelming vote of no confidence in the NSW Government's handling of the education portfolio and is a clear message for the incoming Premier Nathan Rees and Education Minister Verity Firth.

The stopwork action on September 2 was to protest against NSW Government policies which:

• dismantle the statewide transfer system
• downgrade qualifications for permanent TAFE teachers
• provide only 2.5 percent per annum from Treasury for salary increases.

Members at hundreds of local venues condemned the Government's actions and indicated their preparedness to take further industrial action as necessary in term 4 or at the start of the 2009 school/TAFE year.

Local industrial action in defence of the statewide transfer system will continue in term 3 and will go into term 4. This local action is important as it continues to make the issue contestable and the community aware of the problems associated with the loss of the transfer system.

With a new Premier and a new Minister the Federation hopes that the NSW Government will be able to bring a fresh approach to the issues that are the current cause of disputation.

Maree O'Halloran is the President.

Fresh start with new Minister

DET white-ants transfer system with codes change

MP backs staffing campaign

Local action continues

Voters slip away when they're snubbed

Balloons engage town residents on campaigns

For further information

September 2008 contents