SA push for federal awards
By Anthony Thirlwall
ADELAIDE — South Australia's 20,000 teachers are looking to the federal award system in an attempt to protect their wages and conditions and to prevent retrenchments.
The move follows a statewide strike last month and the rallying of 7000 teachers at Parliament House to protest against education cutbacks recommended by the Brown government's audit commission into the state's finances. The government plans to slash $139 million from the education budget over four years.
The report says there are 931 more teachers than are necessary, 680 more non-teachers and 141 more staff in non-school locations than the Australian average.
The South Australian Institute of Teachers fears that at least 1200 jobs will go if the government legislates the cuts.
SAIT president Claire McCarty believes that an interim award would prevent any action to retrench teachers, increase workloads or reduce conditions. It would also maintain registered agreements and the memorandum of understanding on class sizes, non-contact time and staff allocations.
The move to federal awards comes 16 months after the AEU national conference decided to seek a federal award for its 200,000 members. So far, only education workers in the ACT and NT have secured federal awards, and Victorian workers received interim coverage in March.
The state government said on June 10 that there would be no changes to conditions until at least July 28, the day the Industrial Relations Commission is expected to decide whether South Australian teachers should be granted an interim federal award.
Other unions are considering similar action as the government prepares to implement its new industrial relations act in early July.
The new act includes freedom of exploitation concepts such as prohibiting closed shops and compulsory unionism. It is also designed to significantly widen the opportunities for enterprise bargaining by allowing some deals to be struck without union involvement. Both the Democrats and the Labor Party allowed these key parts to be passed.