Monday, July 21, 2008

DET Pay rise and the fine print

It seems the new pay rise has been delivered and interesting stuff is beginning to hit the fan. My criticism and scepticism of the union (and reason for not joining until now) seems to be valid.

The pay rise offered (in the scant terms described and according to heresay) is below inflation, is over three to four years, has reduced conditions and has the approval of the union. DET looks to be negotiating hard and trying to get this resolved quickly before the imminent state election.

Union information is posted here:
http://www.sstuwa.org/.

but here is the counter argument to union information posted by Marko Vojkovic at http://www.platowa.com/ :

"The official base rate increases are:4.5%, 4.5%, 4% and a floating 2% at the end of the agreement. That equates to 15% over 3+ years. If you take into account it is only backdated to this pay period, it is almost over 4 years.

It is a 1.5%-2% increase on EBA 2 with extra trade offs. The 15 hours PD in your own time is there as is the flexible working hours (which strangely do not appear in the summary) These are from 8am to 6pm.

There are increases for ST2 in terms of a new level, but these must be applied for and involve extra duties so it is unfair to include them in any pay rise. It is a complete sell out. The Minister required Executive to endorse the package before showing it to members.

There was a deadline for the Executive to accept it without actually seeing the full package. Ross Greenwood, the financial analyst on the Today Show on Channel 9 stated that the cost of living has increased by 4.8% and if your wages do not increase by that amount, you are taking a pay cut. This offer asks teachers to take a significant pay cut over 4 years.

This is the complete opposite of the Twomey Report recommendations.Once again, we have been let down by our 'experienced' Senior Officers.When was this offer negotiated and by whom?

If arbitration is suspended, then we are back in negotiations. Either our Senior Officers have been negotiating in secret or they have accepted DET's first offer without presenting a counter offer.

Either way, I feel incredibly let down. Even the way it has been presented to members reminds me of those misleading government ads.

We will now see a huge VOTE YES campaign waged by our Union Senior Officers and their group of sycophantic supporters who believe that what is good for the Labor Party is good for teachers. This can not be allowed to happen yet again."

As always the devil is in the details and the fine print.

Updated here (6 October 2008).

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