Jenny Long, Sydney
NSW teachers are disappointed with their 12% wage increase over two years, half of what they sought, and blame Premier Bob Carr's Labor government for being less than honest with the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) about what the government could afford to pay teachers.
The NSW Teachers Federation is also concerned that the new wage disparity between executive positions in Catholic and government schools, may be spread to all classroom teachers, entrenching public schools as a second-class system with lower-paid teachers.
After a week of dramatic developments — including the calling off by the Teachers Federation of a two-hour stop-work planned for June 25 — it has emerged that the Carr government's claim that it could only afford a wage rise for government school teachers of 3% per annum over two years was a lie.
The NSW budget brought down by Treasurer Michael Egan on June 22 provided full funding for the 12% wage rise awarded on June 10 — double what the government told the IRC it could afford — rather than taking the extra 6% from the existing education budget, as the government had threatened to do.
Adding insult to injury, last month NSW industrial relations minister John Della Bosca had successfully persuaded the IRC to reopen the case on the eve of the IRC's decision on the teachers' long-running work value wage case, to hear arguments on the government's claimed incapacity to pay. As a result, the IRC "discounted" the final wage increase.
By contrast, the employer of teachers in the Catholic school system had argued for increased rates of pay for principals and other promotional positions in Catholic schools, leading to an award on June 11 for extra increases worth up to 7.5% for these positions, on top of the 12% awarded to all Catholic and public school teachers.
The Teachers Federation, which represents public school teachers, has entered negotiations with the education department to secure the same increases for comparable public school positions, but the department has been ordered by education minister Andrew Refshauge to extract "flexibility" gains in school staffing arrangements. Those publicly proposed so far will drastically undermine the universality of the government school system.
The Teachers Federation and the education department are due to report back to the IRC on these negotiations on June 28.
Many public school teachers are unhappy with the 12% increase and want their union to seek further increases, not just for promotional positions in schools.
The Activist Teachers Network (ATN), one of at least two rank-and-file groups of angry union members, has called for a campaign for wage justice for all teachers to be discussed at the union's annual conference, which will be held in the first week of July.
The ATN has called for the implementation of work bans, as well as a campaign of rolling stoppages, rallies and mass meetings of members to achieve improved pay and working conditions for teachers in public education. The ATN website can be viewed at <Http://www.geocities.com/treatynow>.
From Green Left Weekly, June 30, 2004.
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