By Nick Fredman
SYDNEY — Teachers from public and Catholic schools, TAFE and the Adult Migrant Education Service resolved at joint meetings across NSW on May 10 to strike for three days in the week following the May 21 state budget unless their demand for a 12% pay increase with no productivity trade-offs is met.
Numbers and a militant feeling at the meetings were helped by an announcement by education minister John Aquilina on May 9 that term dates would be changed, involving a shorter Christmas break.
The threat of a three-day strike represents the further escalation of a campaign that has created unprecedented unity between the NSW Teachers Federation, the Independent Education Union and teachers in different sectors.
Teachers struck on March 22 and again on April 23, when 15,000 also marched to Parliament house. Since then, the Carr Labor government has withdrawn its offer of a 7.1% funded rise and a 4.9% productivity increase. The Teachers Federation argues that the government's offer was tied to a log of trade-offs which the Department of School Education and TAFE are pushing for in an award application before the IRC.
The government insists that there will be no wage increase except through arbitration. Teachers argue that their pay has fallen 25% in real terms since 1975 and conditions have deteriorated markedly; every year since 1983 there has been an increase in class sizes. The trade-offs demanded by the government include longer hours, the halving of sick leave, the cutting of many allowances and the loss of 2500 jobs.
From Wollongong, Tony Iltis reports that joint meetings of the NSWTF and the IEU were held in Bulli, Port Kembla, Dapto, Kiama and Wollongong.
The Wollongong meeting was attended by about 300 teachers, who voted overwhelmingly to support the executive's motion for industrial action. However, many teachers wanted more immediate action. A motion was passed by a large majority, calling on the executive to start an immediate campaign of rolling half-day stoppages to pressure the government before the budget.