Bendigo TAFE administrative staff to take industrial action
Bendigo TAFE administrative staff to take industrial action
Administrative and professional staff at Bendigo TAFE will take industrial action for the first time in recent memory, the National Tertiary Education Union announced today.
“Non-teaching staff at Bendigo TAFE will be on strike on 4 April due to the intransigence of management, who have refused to offer their staff fair pay and conditions,” said NTEU State Secretary Dr. Colin Long.
This is the first strike by professional, technical, administrative and clerical staff at Bendigo TAFE in memory. They may be a small proportion of staff but they are the lowest paid and have had enough of seeing their pay going backwards every round of pay bargaining.
“We are not taking this action lightly,” said Dr Long. “The fact is that Bendigo TAFE management are showing that they do not value their staff by making substandard offers. We have student counsellors and librarians working at Bendigo TAFE who earn significantly less than someone doing the same job at La Trobe University, local government, or in the public service.”
“Bendigo TAFE staff are being offered an effective pay cut by the TAFE’s management,” said Dr. Long. “Their offer of a 3% increase is less than the increase in the cost of living. If we want the best services available at Bendigo TAFE, we need to be able to attract quality staff with fair pay and conditions. The shocking turnover of staff at Bendigo TAFE evidences this situation and is undercutting the effectiveness of the college in providing high quality services to the community.”
“The serious disparity between professional and administrative staff at TAFE and staff performing the same functions in universities, TAFEs associated with universities, and the public service can only be fixed if TAFE managers agree to ignore the State Government’s wages policy, which seeks to hold public sector pay rises to a level below the level of inflation.”
Dr. Long concluded: “The NTEU’s claim of a 7% p.a increase at Bendigo TAFE is a reasonable claim for wage justice for TAFE staff. Better still would be a State government commitment to improve its own wages policy and properly fund such a payrise.”
Media Contact
Alex White, awhite@vic.nteu.org.au, 0403 694 397
