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SA teachers stop work over pay and funding

Mel Hughes, Adelaide

10 August 2008

South Australian teachers undertook four days of rolling stoppages and community rallies across the state from August 4-7 in an attempt to force the state government to re-negotiate its pay and funding arrangement for public schools and TAFEs. Eighty-three per cent of teachers voted in favour of the stoppages in workplace ballots in late July.

According to an August 7 Australian Education Union statement, the actions attracted strong community support. The four days of stoppages concluded with a rally outside state industrial relations minister Paul Caica’s office. The union reported that “AEU members and officials reminded the Minister of his roots as an official of the Firefighters Union by chanting ‘Caica, Caica, put out the fire … ’, suggesting that the Minister needs to act quickly to provide a better o-ffer to education workers and thereby ending this protracted dispute”.

According to an August 6 report in the Northern Argus local paper, teachers, students, parents and ancillary staff all joined a rally in the county town of Clare on August 5 to protest the government’s failure to meet the teachers’ demands.

The union said more than 70 meetings had already taken place since March to negotiate an agreement with the government. The union is seeking a 21% pay increase over three years, but the government has only offered 9.75%.

The dispute also concerns the education funding model. The state’s schools are currently funded according to student/teacher ratios, but the government is proposing to tie funding to student enrolments. This will make it extremely difficult for small, rural and regional schools, or schools with low retention rates, to get adequate funding. Some schools are already slated for closure should this funding arrangement succeed.

According to the AEU, 175 schools will be $7 million worse off under the plan.