BY JOHN GAUCI
SYDNEY — On June 2, NSW teachers overwhelmingly endorsed an agreement on salaries and status recommended by the NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF) executive, ending a long and bitter industrial dispute with the state Labor government and the Department of Education and Training (DET). Around 84% of the more than 18,500 NSWTF members who attended meetings across NSW voted for the agreement.
The agreement means that all teachers will receive a cumulative 16.98% pay increase — 4% from April 3; 3% from July 1, 2001; 4% from July 1, 2002; and 5% from January 2003. School teachers at the top of the scale will receive an extra $300 in 2003.
The agreement will expire on December 31, 2003. Teaching hours have not increased. The agreement is an improvement on the 14.35% offer initially made to TAFE teachers.
Improvements for casual school teachers include equity with casual pay rates paid in Catholic schools, higher daily rates for short-term casual teachers, and back payment for long-term casual and part-time teachers.
The new award also includes a GST clause: both parties will monitor the impact of the GST during the life of the agreement.
A contentious issue was DET's misuse of the English Literacy and Language Assessment (ELLA) tests, as well as other test results. DET has agreed to protocols on the use of the results of the government's new numeracy and computing tests.
While the award includes a number of much deserved improvements for teachers, it is not the settlement that many teachers wanted and contains a number of significant compromises. NSW teachers will be forced to lift the ban on ELLA and fully implement the tests, even though the ban is not related to the salaries dispute. Teachers will also have to fully implement other tests, annual school reports and associated school self-evaluation and improvement programs and reviews.
The new restriction on bans throughout the life of the agreement will severely impede the NSWTF's industrial clout.
Another disappointment was the introduction of a flexible range of teaching hours. High school teachers may be asked to start work as early as 7.30am and work as late as 5.30pm. Opposition to this provision was raised by numerous secondary school teachers.
Nevertheless, the new award is a significant improvement over the initial offer made by DET, and it has taken a long and bitter campaign to win against the state government.
The NSWTF would have been in a far better industrial position if other public sector unions, such as the Public Sector Association and the Nurses Association, had not capitulated. Instead of running a joint public sector campaign, these Labor Party-led unions compromised the interests of their members to appease the Labor government, leaving the NSWTF isolated.