Head teachers stopwork for salary parity

By Phil Bradley

Stopwork meetings are being held in TAFE colleges around the state over the Government's refusal to provide to TAFE head teachers, the additional three per cent salary increases agreed to for public and private school head teachers.

Federation has also been pursuing additional salary increases for other TAFE promotions positions, equivalent to those increases granted by the NSW Industrial Relations Commission to teachers in promotions positions in the Catholic education system.

For members covered by the major award, the only means of receiving further salary increases is by obtaining agreement of DET and the Government to vary the award by consent.

In this context, Federation Council resolved that Federation meetings should be held in all worksites with affected members, for the purpose of carrying a recommendation to be communicated to the Minister and the Director-General. The Council also endorsed the holding of stopwork meetings in such worksites.

Stopwork meetings have been held at worksites including Lidcombe, Gymea, Miller, Loftus, Orange, Ultimo, Taree and Broken Hill.

Hundreds of members in promotions positions have now expressed their anger at the lack of flow on of the Catholic increases. They also rejected the loss of positions and working conditions trade offs to obtain salary justice, and recommended further industrial action, including bans on additional work relating to occupational health and safety, risk assessment, workplace evidence collection, assessment validation and audits.

The workload of those in TAFE promotions positions is already excessive and it has been acknowledged even by TAFE that they are having difficulties filling many positions. Federation has continued to urge DET to address this problem. For example, Federation has been insisting for years in negotiations with DET regarding the head teachers' agreement, that the maximum hours they supervise must be reduced.

Phil Bradley is the Assistant General Secretary (Post School Education).

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