The head of Tasmania's teachers' union is now recommending teachers reject the government's latest wages offer.
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In an email to members, Australian Education Union president Helen Richardson concedes that the offer is not in the best interests of relief teachers who would have suffered a big pay cut.
"While the latest government offer to members on the Teachers Agreement contains a long list of benefits for members and for public education, significant numbers of members have expressed strong concerns over the government's proposed changes affecting relief teachers," Ms Richardson wrote to members.
"When members speak, it's our job to listen and respond.
"This Friday, I will put forward a motion to our AEU Branch Council meeting to reject the government's Teachers Agreement offer as it stands.
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"I will ask our Branch Council members to reject the government's proposed changes to relief teacher loadings and the unjustified link the government has created between this and primary teacher instructional load reductions."
The motions Ms Richardson is foreshadowing are:
MOTION 1:
Branch Council rejects the Government's Offer as it stands due to their proposed reduction in relief teacher loading and the unjustified link to a reduction of primary school instructional load.
MOTION 2:
Branch Council, taking into account extensive feedback from members, revises the threshold issues required for a new offer to be endorsed.
MOTION 3:
Branch Council recognises a current crisis in attracting relief teachers across all sectors and proposes setting up a task force with a limited timeline to develop best practice solutions to this crisis.
In a media statement on Wednesday, Ms Richardson urged teachers to remain united.
"As a Branch Council we have the task of forming a united position and path forward to deliver a quality education for all and maintain the unity that makes us strong," she said.
"Please take the time this week to discuss these motions and our path forward with members in your workplace. We will be asking all Reps to talk with their members and collate feedback to present at Branch Council on Friday, in addition to the poll results and feedback collected at member meetings."
Ms Richardson said it was clear that the government had "failed to convince members that cutting relief teacher pay loading is acceptable, particularly when we have a relief teacher shortage crisis already in our schools and colleges".
"Schools are regularly forced to collapse classes because they can't source relief teachers, especially in the winter months," she said
"The Hodgman Government must explain how they plan to tackle the current crisis in relief teaching and why an otherwise well supported offer is being put at risk by their insistence to cut relief teacher loading rates.
"AEU Branch Council, themselves serving teachers, will consider all the feedback from members which has come via surveys and two rounds of state-wide meetings, and they will decide the path forward."
Meanwhile, other public sector union members will meet in the next two weeks to decide further action in the long-running wages dispute.
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Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff described Ms Richardson's move as "an extraordinary, undemocratic and hypocritical backflip by the AEU".
He urged the teachers' union to respect the 70 per cent of members who had voted to support the offer.
"Rejection of the offer will mean that major benefits for teachers which have been negotiated will be unfunded and cannot proceed," Mr Rockliff said.
"The reduction in relief teacher pay loading was not just unanimously endorsed by the AEU executive, it was actually put to the Government by the AEU in an offer on May 6 which they proactively told media about and referred to as "a circuit-breaker".
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