The goodwill of Tasmanian educators is ‘rapidly running out’, says AEU state manager Roz Madsen

Public school teachers say they will step up industrial action if the State Government doesn’t come up with a better deal on pay and conditions within a week.

PUBLIC school teachers say they will step up industrial action if the State Government doesn’t come up with a better deal on pay and conditions within a week.

School goes back for the state’s government schools today. Teachers around the state held stopwork meetings on Monday.

AEU state manager Roz Madsen held a press conference today to give an update on negotiations for a new wage agreement ahead of a key meeting with the State Government on Thursday. Picture: MATHEW FARRELL

Australian Education Union state manager Roz Madsen said those meetings voted to escalate industrial action and introduce new work bans if negotiations do not progress by next Tuesday.

“Educators are extremely frustrated that the state Liberal Government hasn’t scrapped its political position of paying Tasmanian teachers the least in the country or agreed to provide more in-class support desperately needed for the 2019 school year,” Ms Madsen said.

“It is unacceptable that students will be returning ... to the same under-resourced classrooms and with teachers feeling disrespected by a State Government that won’t even offer a pay rise that keeps up with the cost of living,” she said.

“Support staff return to the same roles which sees them stood down over the holidays and who haven’t had a pay rise since December 2017.”

Ms Madsen said the results of the stopwork meetings showed that teachers were united in their bid to get a better deal — and were overwhelmingly in support of escalating action.

“The goodwill of educators is rapidly running out and if there’s no progress by the 12th February deadline then our executive, at its meeting on 14 February, may decide to escalate campaign action which could include work bans and future stopwork action,” said Ms Madsen.

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Teachers held two stopwork meetings during school time in the second half of last year.

Ms Madsen said with inflation running at 3 per cent in Tasmania the Government’s offer of a 2 per cent pay rise for educators was in fact a pay cut.

Treasurer Peter Gutwein called on the union to stay at the bargaining table.

MORE: GUTWEIN APPEARS WILLING TO NEGOTIATE

“We’re negotiating in good faith with unions and would hope that the AEU would do the same,” he said.

“While negotiations are underway, we would expect industrial action to cease.”