Paula Nassif
SYDNEY — TAFE teachers in NSW are concerned over threats of disciplinary action for making public comments. Labor Party assistant shadow education minister John Murray noted recently that two Wollongong teachers were reprimanded for commenting on a letter from TAFE Minister John Fahey in the Illawarra Mercury.
Barry Spooner and Carey Buecher were told they had made unauthorised comments. "Their offence came as a result of them correcting comments by the minister", said Murray. "These double standards now allow Minister Fahey to distort the truth in published letters to the editor without any redress from TAFE staff."
Shoalhaven teacher Brian James was also cautioned for commenting to Prime Television on a course restructuring.
"The attempted ban puts at risk teachers' rights to defend in public their working and wage conditions. Teachers as individuals have a right to make public comment", said Murray.
Spooner thinks the Illawarra teachers might have been targeted because the teachers' union is strong in the region. Sydney TAFE teachers have not been cautioned after writing letters to newspapers, including the Sydney Morning Herald.
Last October, "I wrote a letter to the Illawarra Mercury in response to a letter than was written by the minister for industrial relations, John Fahey, and as a result I received a letter threatening disciplinary action if I made similar public comments." Such action could be a fine, reprimand or dismissal.
The letter came from Illawarra TAFE network manager Tom Smith, who later refused to comment. Murray says the threats originated with Fahey, though "as far as I understand he's denying any involvement".
Spooner said he wrote the letter as a private citizen, though it was also clear he was a TAFE teacher. "According to the code of conduct and ethics, you're supposed to obtain official approval before you can make any public comment. Now what concerns me is that official approval will be given to people who adopt the government line, and those who don't won't obtain approval."
In a recent two-day strike, a North Sydney technical teacher was interviewed "saying he didn't go on strike because he couldn't see any point to it. In other words he was adopting the government line. Did that teacher receive official approval to make that public comment, and if not, did he receive a disciplinary letter?"
Spooner has written to independent MP John Hatton, who made complained to Fahey that the government had violated an agreement to respect freedom of speech for all public sector employees.
Spooner said many teachers are dissatisfied with the TAFE system at present. The topic of his letter was a new award for TAFE
"The Minister portrayed it as a handsome 16% increase for all TAFE teachers on average, where in fact a lot of people, probably in the order of 40%, in effect got a wage cut."
Spooner also challenged Fahey's claim that the teachers' campaign was "deliberately disruptive behaviour of a selfish and disgruntled few": "All I can say for anybody out in the community is if they went to work one week and got their pay packet, and they go to work next week and do exactly the same amount of work and receive $100 less per fortnight in their pay packets, and in some cases more, how would they feel?"