Supporting the salaries campaign, teachers took strike action and attended stopwork meetings on November 19, including at Sutherland District Trade Union Club.

Teachers want real value pay increases

By

Brenda Seymour

The NSW Government's 2007 wages policy does not reflect inflationary forecasts.

The Department of Education and Training (DET) is inflexibly insisting that any increases to the salaries, rates of pay and allowances of teachers comply with the 2007 wages policy, but it is ludicrous for the NSW Government to say there is a 'best fit' between the 2007 wages policy and the reality of our times.

Predictions that 2.5 per cent per annum pay increases would maintain the real value of pay have been blown out of the water by the Reserve Bank forecasts.

The Reserve Bank's forecast (November 10) stated: "Overall, underlying inflation is expected to remain at around 4.5 per cent over the year to December 2008 and then to decline gradually, reaching 3.25 per cent by mid 2010 and 2.5 per cent by mid 2011. Recent falls in petrol prices and a possible fall in the financial services component of the CPI are expected to contribute to a fall in CPI inflation in the near term, but CPI inflation would subsequently be expected to move broadly in line with the forecast for underlying inflation."

If you take the annual CPI figures for December 2005 to December 2007, the CPI increases Australia wide were 3.3 per cent in 2006 and 3 per cent in 2007. The Sydney CPI increases were 3.2 per cent and 2.4 per cent in 2007 respectively.

Michael Costa, when he was the state's Treasurer and the architect of the 2007 wages policy, looked at the CPI figure over the three years prior to and until June 2007 to ensure he encompassed the relatively low inflation period prior to June 2005 to make his predictions.

Most public sector unions (solely by the date of the end of their awards/agreements) have settled their awards/agreements ahead of the high 2008 CPI predictions and ahead of the global financial crisis.

There is no 'best fit' for teachers for the NSW Government to hold with an outdated, suspect government wages policy developed in 2007 by a Treasurer no longer in office.

The NSW Government and the Department of Education and Training ignore the fact that Australia and NSW are experiencing a period of relatively high inflation which has eroded the real value of the salaries, rates of pay and allowances of teachers covered by the Award.

Teachers intend by their actions to get this message across to an out of touch state government.

Brenda Seymour is Assistant General Secretary (Research and Industrial).

Interstate teachers win salary increases

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