TAFE teachers rally for new agreement

TAFE teachers have been rallying outside ALP state politicians offices in their campaign for a new enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA).

They want the EBA to address job insecurity, workload and salaries. Rallies have taken place around Melbourne as well as across regional Victoria.

An important aspect of the Australian Education Union's campaign is the argument that TAFE teachers should get pay parity with school teachers at the top level.

AEU (TAFE and adult provision sector) vice-president Gillian Robertson told the protest outside Richmond MP Richard Wynne's office on October 21 that TAFE teachers are paid $13,000 less than secondary teachers doing the same work.

TAFE teachers are angry that the state Labor government hasn't responded to the demand for pay parity.

TAFE teachers rallied on August 20 in the first stopwork in 13 years. If the negotiations don't make significant progress in the next couple of weeks, the union will organise another statewide stopwork on November 25.

From GLW issue 772