Tasmanian public school teachers to hold stopwork action on February 4

Tasmania’s public school teachers are planning another round of industrial action as children and their parents prepare for the new school year.

TASMANIA’S public school teachers will take industrial action on their first day back at work next month, although students will not be affected.

The Australian Education Union on Wednesday said it would hold half-hour stopwork meetings at schools on Monday, February 4.

AEU state manager Roz Madsen said it was likely industrial action would escalate if the State Government did not improve its pay offer.

“There’s been no actual shift in the Government’s wages offer — which is 2 per cent — which would leave our teachers … the lowest paid in the country, which is unacceptable,” she said.

“Nor was there any concrete improvements for in-class support for children.

“Our members feel very unhappy about this. We put all of our resources and time and energy into trying to fix this problem and to get a new agreement before school goes back.”

MORE NEWS:

PUBLIC SERVANTS PUSH TO SHARE IN ‘GOLDEN AGE’

TEACHERS FIGHT TO CONTINUE INTO NEW YEAR

AEU state manager Roz Madsen at a press conference at AEU headquarters in Hobart late last year.

Two stopwork actions were held during school time last year as part of the union’s campaign for a better deal from the Government, which is steadfastly sticking to a 2 per cent a year wage rise offer in talks with public sector unions.

Ms Madsen said the industrial action would not affect students.

“Our branch executive met [on Tuesday] night and in light of the lack of progress in the negotiations they authorised stopwork action on Monday the 4th of February.

“This is the first day for educators before the children arrive on Wednesday.

“That sort of action will be to brief our members will wrap up the negotiations and at the moment there is not great news to tell in relation to in-house support and wages.”