Union pay fight to hit services
THOUSANDS of unionists will turn out around the state today for a massive show of strength aimed at overturning the Government’s 2 per cent wages cap.
Teachers and nurses taking industrial action will be joined by public servants, firefighters, prison officers, park rangers, ambulance officers, childcare workers, security guards, cleaners and hospitality workers for rallies across Tasmania.
But Treasurer Peter Gutwein dismissed the day of action as a cynical move by unions to disrupt public services.
THOUSANDS of unionists will turn out around the state today for a massive show of strength aimed at overturning the Government’s 2 per cent wages cap.
Teachers and nurses taking industrial action will be joined by public servants, firefighters, prison officers, park rangers, ambulance officers, childcare workers, security guards, cleaners, hospitality workers and more for mass rallies in Hobart, Launceston, Devonport, Burnie and St Helens.
The rallies will reflect widespread anger at the State Government’s 2 per cent pay rise cap as well as support for the ACTU’s Change the Rules campaign seeking sweeping industrial relations reform.
So many are expected in Hobart that the venue has been moved from Franklin Square to Parliament Lawns with 3000-4000 people tipped to turn out.
But State Treasurer Peter Gutwein yesterday dismissed the day of action as a cynical move by unions to disrupt public services to chase a bigger pay rise. Health and Community Services Union state secretary Tim Jacobson said he had never seen his members so fired up. “It is going to be huge,” he said. “It’s the first time for as long as I can remember that all of the unions, teachers, nurses, firefighters, public servants, health workers, have all come together under the one banner,” he said. Mr Jacobson said government attempts to make it harder for workers to attend the meetings had backfired. “It’s just made them even more angry. The reality is that seven years of 2 per cent — particularly in health and community services — in the face of massive demand and including job cuts, people are at the end of the tether, they’re tired and they think the Government should recognise them. “There is a point at which the Government has to say ‘you’ve done the hard yards and here is some recognition of that’.” He said the best thing the Government could do was to sit down and negotiate in good faith. Jannette Armstrong from United Voice said the campaign for better conditions was not just lim- ited to public sector unions.
“It’s resonating with our membership far and wide. We’ve been doing call-outs to our members about this and my staff are telling me they haven’t had such animated conversations with our members for some time.
“I think it is going to be huge. If the Government weren’t on notice, they certainly will be after tomorrow.”
The Australian Education Union yesterday said the Government’s “slow and incompetent” response to stopwork meetings by teachers would spell chaos for parents today.
The union’s state manager Roz Madsen says the Government knew about today’s industrial action more than a week ago, but only told parents yesterday which schools were affected.
“The union actually advised the Government 11 days ago that we’ll be stopping work on Wednesday and it took until the close of schools late yesterday to actually advise parents.
“The way they advised parents was on the Education Department’s website and within minutes of that information going up on the website, new schools were being added to that, these schools were coming off that list, times were changing when schools were closed.
“It’s a moving feast. So it’s complete confusion for the parent community and that’s all of the Government’s making. It was totally unnecessary.”
And the union produced an email from Education Department deputy secretary Liz Jack calling for volunteers to supervise students in schools for two hours tomorrow. Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff accused the union of misleading parents. “The AEU has been telling parents that this strike action is about smaller class sizes and teacher workload, and not money — that is wrong,” he said.
“The Government is hiring another 250 teachers and 80 teacher assistants over the next six years to address teacher workload and class sizes.
“An increase of more than 6 per cent in wages over three years actually threatens our capacity to deliver on this commitment.
“Parents will quite rightly be asking why the AEU has chosen to strike within school hours instead of protesting at an alternative time which would not impact on students and their families.”
Opposition education spokeswoman Michelle O’Byrne said it was hypocritical and misleading for Mr Rockliff to claim he was “disappointed” in teachers taking part in the action when he had not told parents “until the last moment that schools would be affected”.
“Mr Rockliff and the Government were advised about potential action by teachers and other public servants on October 11, so if parents have questions about why they have received such short notice, those questions should be directed to the Minister.”