Teachers face pay being docked over tests boycott

PUBLIC school teachers face sanctions and penalties, including docked pay, with a planned boycott of national literacy and numeracy tests likely to be deemed illegal.

PUBLIC school teachers face sanctions and penalties, including docked pay, with a planned boycott of national literacy and numeracy tests likely to be deemed illegal under federal workplace laws.

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard has refused to rule out supporting action against teachers if they go through with their threat to boycott the tests, saying industrial action taken outside the enterprise bargaining period is not lawful.

Teachers covered by federal laws in Victoria, the ACT and the Northern Territory could have their pay docked by a minimum of four hours if Fair Work Australia deemed the boycott unlawful. Teachers in other state jurisdictions also face penalties, although these would probably apply to the union rather than individuals.

"Action that's taken not within the context of bargaining is unprotected and there are sanctions and penalties under the workplace relations law to deal with unprotected industrial action," Ms Gillard, who is also Education and Workplace Relations Minister, told ABC radio.

"I don't rule anything in or anything out about how we would deal with this kind of ban if it was put in place."

Just one week before school information goes live on the Rudd government's My School website, the Australian Education Union federal conference yesterday resolved that teachers would not co-operate with the next round of National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) scheduled for May.

Ms Gillard said the threatened action would not affect the website's launch.

Asked whether she would use the new workplace laws to stop the boycott, she said she would "do everything I need to, to ensure that this school transparency takes effect".

"I will not be deterred by threats of banning tests or indeed any other form of threats or action from delivering this school transparency," she said.

AEU federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said the union was ready to discuss options with Ms Gillard to avert a boycott.

He said teachers wanted the government to introduce measures to prevent the publication of league tables.

This could include legislation to make school-by-school comparisons illegal or copyright the data so that anyone who wanted to reprint it would have to get permission from the government.

Speaking in Melbourne, Mr Gavrielatos said Ms Gillard could take inspiration from the NSW government, which brought in laws banning the publication of school league tables in 1997.

He told The Australian last night the union had written to Ms Gillard, urging her to try to broker a solution to avoid the withdrawal of co-operation of 180,000 teachers.

"We remain ready to begin discussions with you immediately to try to achieve a satisfactory outcome," it wrote.

"This is too important an issue for the future of quality education for the government to remain unmoved by the overwhelming body of evidence against league tables."

Mr Gavrielatos would not be drawn on the technicalities of any legal challenge mounted against teachers, but he reiterated that he wanted to negotiate with Ms Gillard. "If the minister wants to get advice on industrial relations (options), that's for the minister to determine," he said.

A spokeswoman for Ms Gillard said the Deputy Prime Minister had met with the union previously and was well aware of its views.

"The government has no intention of restricting media coverage or imposing fines as the Liberal Party has done in NSW," she said.

"These measures will better inform the education debate in this country."

The Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry said it strongly supported the national tests in numeracy and literacy.

Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne said the Coalition did not support the boycott, but also did not think the website would be useful.

"The government is creating the information publicly that will allow schools to be criticised and allow school communities to feel bad about their particular school but they are not giving principals the autonomy to act to change those bad results," he told ABC radio.