Senior staff stop work over salaries

By Astrid O’Neill

The senior staff at Sutherland TAFE stopped work on October 28 to discuss issues around their workload and pay.

Management had to call off a planned senior staff meeting when it became known that head teachers, coordinators, consultants and counsellors would boycott the management meeting in favour of their own stop work meeting.

The senior staff are up in arms about the excessive administrative workload which takes staff away from student issues and educational leadership.

They are furious about the failure of the State Government to automatically flow on to TAFE the promotions wage increase first awarded in the private school sector, and which has recently been negotiated in the public schools sector. The State Government proposal for a similar increase in TAFE would come at the cost of many head teachers' jobs, and would increase the already horrendous workload of the existing positions for those who remain.

The head teachers' workload is already recognised as being excessive and the proposal would make that far worse.

Senior staff at Sutherland TAFE will concentrate their work on the priorities of students, teachers and industry, and will ban all administrative work which takes them away from that priority. That includes a ban on TAFE meetings. Management will not be meeting with their senior staff at Sutherland until the issue of the promotions flow on is resolved, and head teacher positions are no longer under threat.

Senior staff at St George TAFE have voted on similar resolutions to their colleagues at Sutherland and voted to stop work on November 18 to hear further reports and consider further action over the additional salaries claim for promotions positions in TAFE.

Astrid O'Neill is a relieving TAFE Organiser.

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