Teachers union officials will write to Premier Will Hodman asking for his intervention to resolve the current wage dispute.
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The Australian Education Union Tasmania branch executive team met on Friday to discuss the government’s latest offer but voted to seek more detail on some of the terms.
AEU state manager Roz Madsen said the union hoped the Premier would intervene on the issue and called on the government to come to the bargaining table over summer.
“We want to accelerate the negotiation,” she said.
“We just want to sit down over summer to getr things sorted to everyone’s best interests, including students, before school goes back next year.”
However, the call was met with criticism by Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff, who labelled the call “grandstanding” by the union.
“Tasmanians are rightfully wondering why there are threats of more disruptive industrial action next year when a six per cent pay rise offer has been tabled with the union which they have not even taken to members or bothered to make a counter offer on – this is not negotiating in good faith,” he said.
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The government’s latest offer, which is the second that has been proposed to the union, includes a commitment to employ an additional 95 specialist teachers on top of its existing election commitment to recruit 250 teachers.
It also includes a pay rise of two per cent over three years, which has not budged from the state election, which the government has consistently said addresses workload concerns and reduces teacher contact hours.
Ms Madsen said the latest offer “lacked detail” and union members had concerns over the implementation of some of the commitments.
She said the introduction of two hours of “wellbeing time” was a promising condition but said members were unsure how the government would enact that promise.
“Teachers are unable to take their scheduled lunch breaks now, so how will they be able to spend two hours doing wellbeing activities,” she said.
Industrial action has mired the second half of 2018 with schools closed twice this year to accommodation stop work meetings and rallies organised by the union.
The union is also considering further stop work meetings and escalation of industrial action in 2019 but no commitment has been made to this.
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