NSW teachers to walk out on politicians as pay negotiations break down

NSW teachers will walk out on politicians’ school visits after the government backtracked on a new wage deal which the Education Minister has refused to confirm or deny.

The NSW Teachers Federation has joined a growing list of unions souring on the Labor government, claiming the Premier, his Education Minister and Treasurer abandoned at the eleventh hour a “good faith” agreement to lift teachers’ salaries by up to 12 per cent.

The wage deal would have seen new teachers start out on $85,000 per year, making NSW’s beginning teachers the highest paid in the country, and top-level teachers boosted 8 per cent from $113,042 to $122,100.

NSW Teachers Federation president Angelo Gavrielatos claimed the agreement was “sealed” in May and reinforced in June, but that the government walked away from the deal last Friday and instead counteroffered with an “insulting” four year agreement that instituted a 2.5 per cent wage cap from the second year onwards.

“We were informed of an offer that reads more like an insult saying ‘you can have your deal, but it’s conditional’,” he said.

“In doing so, the government has just revealed its state wages policy.”

NSW Teachers Federation President Angelo Gavrielatos announces “political action” against the government during a press conference at State Parliament on Thursday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

In the midst of the stalemate teachers have been encouraged to walk off the job when the politicians come to visit their schools, with Mr Gavrielatos warning of a further “escalation of action in September” if the deal isn’t put back on the table.

“We had a deal … (that) went so far as to choreograph an announcement … that was going to take place at the end of June,” he said.

NSW Deputy Premier and Education Minister Prue Car Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

“Our message to the government is very simple – honour the agreement. This goes to the fundamental question of credibility.”

A “disappointed” Education Minister Prue Car refused to confirm or deny that a deal had been struck in principal, but said her government was “not walking away from” significant increases to teacher salaries.

“Now of course, we need to work on productivity improvements and savings to make this a reality,” she said.

The Minns government is increasingly off-side with the labour unions that took it to power at the March election, after the Health Services Union ramped up its industrial action on Wednesday by refusing to send on-call paramedics to major events amid pay and salary packaging negotiations.

NSW Premier Chris Minns. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

Premier Chris Minns urged the Teachers’ Federation to come back to the negotiating table.

“We don’t want industrial action, we’ve had productive talks and negotiations … but we’re dealing with 12 years of neglect in the teaching profession and it’s difficult to overnight turn that around.

“We do have time on the clock to get a great outcome for teachers … I don’t want daggers at 10 paces.”

Former education minister and Coalition spokeswoman Sarah Mitchell said the revelations show that the Premier’s pre-election pledge to deliver on a pay increase for teachers was “all a lie”.

“What we’re seeing, yet again, is another union coming out and calling out this Labor government for an act of betrayal,” she said.

“It will be parents and students who will be caught in the middle of Labor’s mess … all (industrial action) will do is disrupt the education of thousand of students across the state.”

‘INTERNATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT’: TEACHERS IGNORED, REPORT FINDS

An international report has found NSW public school teachers have been left voiceless and “overwhelmed” by “policy fatigue”, with the education department promising to listen more to teachers under its new leadership.

The independent report, prepared by the OECD Secretariat and commissioned by the previous government, criticised targets and corporate jargon used by the department and the “top-down” design of new policies, which were shaped “with little input from the education profession”.

The OECD team also identified “several examples of policy incoherence, overlap or lack of co-ordination” between different parts of the department, and recommended the department reconsider its language.

“Much emphasis is placed on words/terms such as “corporate”, “client”, “accountability”, “targets” or “expected growth”,” the reported noted.

“This language seems far removed from the world of teaching and 21st century learning.”

Prue Car, NSW Deputy Premier and Education Minister, says the report is scathing of the previous government’s policies. Picture: Jeremy Piper

While strategic support for underperforming schools was “a promising policy action”, annual targets saw school principals “pressured by the system to “deliver quick fixes” or “chase the numbers”.

“School systems that rely mainly on administrative forms of accountability and bureaucratic command-and-control systems to direct their work may struggle to attract the people they need,” the report read.

Murat Dizdar, new Secretary of the Department of Education, has been praised for being more realistic about teachers’ admin burden than previous administrators. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

The reform in question, a School Success Model introduced in 2021, will not be scrapped under Labor however the government has promised to “engage” with everyday teachers and slow down the introduction of new policies and paperwork.

Education Minister Prue Car described the report’s findings as “an international embarrassment”, blaming the previous government for “ignoring” teachers and overloading them with unnecessary policy updates and administration work.

“In no way should we be talking about students, parents and teachers as ‘clients’. The corporatisation of education is over under Labor.”

Shadow education spokesperson and previous education minister Sarah Mitchell called out the government for scrapping one of the policies praised in the OECD report, a ‘rewarding excellence in teaching’ program which would boost pay for more high-performing teachers that the report recommended “should continue to be pursued and prioritised”.

“The government needs to stop obsessing about old policies from the previous government that were phased out several years ago, and explain to parents why they have scrapped the Rewarding Excellence reform when it was so clearly supported by the OECD,” Ms Mitchell said.