
Issue No 31		17 September 1999

Letters to the Editor

Destroying Education

The NSW Department of Education and Training has done more over the last week to attempt to destroy the status of teachers in the community and further reduce the level of goodwill that teachers have to their employer.

This has occurred following the political propaganda campaign D.E.T have run in the press, and through disgraceful letters sent to Parents through their children at public schools.

The misleading information would have people believe that 80% of teachers are on close to $88,000 salaries (the top high school principal earns $81,000, if they have in excess of 910 students at the school. This is about 0.3% of all teachers.)

They also claim that teachers are seeking a 30% pay increase, when in fact it is only 7.5%. This amount has already been granted to independent private school teachers from 1st May, 2000.

Why are they doing this? They are trying to make out that teachers in public schools have it good:- Holidays , leave entitlements, great salary.They think that by attacking teachers in the tabloid press they will polarise public opinion to match their own.

They forget about the ever increasing workload, the difficulties obtaining appropriate resources to deal with behaviour disordered pupils, minimal training and development, a casual teacher shortage and difficulties attracting HSC students to take on teaching as a career.

The Minister and Director General will stop at nothing to try and discredit the public school teachers in N.S.W. Their tactics mirror the worst used in the Greiner/ Fahey/Metherill years.

To choose to attack teachers prior to education week was nasty. However, it's typical of an employer looking for any excuse to avoid negotiations that may lead to paying teachers appropriate salaries.

This government knows that to give teachers a pay increase will lead to a flow on to other public sector employees. It appears we will all have to endure a wage freeze to 2001.

M.Berg, Teachers Federation Representative.

View entire issue - print all of the articles!

Issue 31 contents

Interview: Sadly Vindicated
Labor�s foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton has spent the past year warning that East Timor would explode without a UN peacekeeping force. Now he�s had to watch his predictions come true.

International: In the Bunker
One of the last reporters to leave East Timor, Workers Online's HT Lee remembers the week that Dili burned.

Republic: Tarred With the Same Brush
Neville Wran asks why it is that the most fervant monarchists are also the most eager union-bashers.

Unions: Hard Labour
Prisoner educators argue more attention needs to be given to rehabilitation through teaching, but they�re facing an uphill battle to convince authorities.

History: Labour and Community
A history conference in Wollongong next month will look at the changing role for labour into the next century.

Review: Bobbin' Up - 40 Years On
Forty years after its first publicaton and several European translations Bobbin Up, a classic of industrial fiction, is coming home.

Satire: East Timor Poll Triumph: Support for Jakarta Up 21 Per Cent
The Indonesian Government has declared that it is pleased with the result of the independence referendum in which 21% of East Timorese voted in support of maintaining links with Indonesia.

» Asylum Call for Independence Supporters

» Nurses Collect Vital Medical Supplies

» Industrial Faction for Pre-Conference Caucus

» Lees Backs Freeloader Laws

» Outsourcing Decision - Banks Under the Gun

» Reith Forces Truckies to Speed

» He Talks the Talk - But Can He Walk the Walk?

» Commission Tells AGC to Get Into the Nineties

» Cost-Cutting Puts Clinical Waste in Landfill

» Prisons Reject Free Computers

» US Defence Giant Eyes Welfare Sector