Granville teachers demand answers

Disgruntled Granville TAFE teachers sit before they walk.

By Kathy Nicholson

Over 100 angry teachers from Granville TAFE College walked off the job for the day on November 5 and passed no-confidence motions in Department of Education and Training (DET) Director-General Michael Coutts-Trotter, Education Minister Verity Firth and the NSW Government.

The meeting was heated and voices were raised in anger at the disgraceful loss of conditions for TAFE teachers granted by the Industrial Relations Commission.

The teachers from the South Western Sydney college were outraged at being asked to work about 20 per cent more to fund a 1.5 per cent salary increase. They believe they already work as hard as possible and questioned why they were the only public sector workers in NSW being devalued like this.

Is this all part of the "education devolution", they asked.

Granville teachers said they were also very concerned about the future of their part-time casual colleagues and their students. They feared their colleagues would lose work and their students, who deserve a quality public education, would be short-changed.

Those present at the stopwork meeting were emphatic that TAFE was an essential public service, not a business, and passed a motion placing immediate bans on new commercial work.

Kathy Nicholson is a Relieving TAFE Organiser.

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Last Modified: 19 Nov 2009