Offer of extra teachers fails to impress union as Minister urges end to industrial action

Teachers have angrily rejected the Government’s latest offer in enterprise bargaining negotiations and say stop-work action will go ahead.

Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff at the Drysdale Institute.

TEACHERS have angrily rejected the Government’s latest offer in enterprise bargaining negotiations and say stop-work action later this month will go ahead.

Members of the Australian Education Union’s state executive met late on Thursday and rejected a Government offer to hire 95 more teachers.

“We’re here to announce that unanimously we’ve rejected that offer that was presented to us today,” said executive member David Genford.

“We’re very disappointed in the offer and the fact that it doesn’t actually address workload for so many different people.

“We’re definitely not in a better situation. The offer was money that was already promised at the election.”

Mr Genford said the Government was treating teachers with disrespect by making the offer through the media rather than at the negotiating table.

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Teachers are planning to turn up late to school after stop-work meetings in the state’s North and North-West on Tuesday, November 27, and on Wednesday, November 28, in the South.

An estimated 5600 teachers at public schools, colleges and TAFE are expected to take part in the industrial action.

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Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff said teachers should be satisfied with the Government’s offer of more staff to address their complaint of overwork and should cancel their industrial action.

Mr Rockliff said the Government would hire the additional 95 specialist teachers over six years, on top of plans for an extra 250 teachers already being recruited, but is standing firm on its pay rise offer of 2 per cent a year.

Mr Rockliff said parents will find out next week whether schools will be open or not during the days of stop-work action.

“My expectation is that I’ll have information very early next week and I’ll make a decision then whether or not individual schools have to close for the whole day or indeed can remain open the whole day so schools can cover the whole day with teachers being able to attend, like happened last time,” he said.

“I’m urging the Australian Education Union to put students first, not to punish students and parents by industrial action.”

Labor’s Sarah Lovell said the Government might struggle to recruit teachers.

“The most concerning question is how the Government expect to be able to attract 95 new specialist teachers into the workforce when they are offering the lowest wages in the country,” she said.