darinsullivan.blogspot.com: Court action from NSW Education Department to stop teachers 24-hr strike

NSW Teachers Strike against The O'Farrell Government's legislation to cap public sector wage increases while also removing the IRC' s juristriction to arbitrate on public sector wage claims. Picture: Jane Dempster Source: The Daily Telegraph

THE education department will take teachers to court this morning to try to stop a planned 24-hour strike.

While other public servants will only stop work long enough to attend a lunchtime rally on Thursday, the NSW Teachers Federation ordered its 70,000 members to strike for a full day.

With the action set to shut down more than 2000 public schools and many TAFEs, the education department will ask the Industrial Relations Commission to order them back to work.

Teachers will be joined at the Domain rally by nurses, firefighters, police, prison wardens and other public sector workers all protesting against the government's industrial relations policy freezing salary increases at 2.5 per cent for four years.

Unions NSW Mark Lennon expected about 20,000 people to turn up but promised "all efforts would be made to minimise public disruption", with most unionists stopping only for the rally and ensuring enough staff remain at work to maintain services.

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Teachers are the only ones who have decided to strike for 24 hours, forcing parents to find alternative care arrangements for almost half a million primary school students and disrupting final weeks of classwork for HSC students.

Education Minister Adrian Piccoli said he had enjoyed a "good relationship" with the teacher's union since the March election, but said Thursday's strike was "responding to a political imperative, that is, Labor's desire to have a lot of people in the Domain".

"I can't imagine that many teachers in Broken Hill will be making the journey to the Domain, so why call a strike, two days after the budget?" he said.

He said tomorrow's budget would meet an election promise of 900 extra teachers over the next four years for the government's literacy and numeracy program.

Because teachers aren't currently in wage negotiations with the government, the IRC would be expected to direct the teachers not to walk out of their classrooms.

"The union is making a lot of play about how highly it regards the independent umpire - that is, the IRC - so it will be interesting to see what happens if the IRC recommended the teachers go back to work and then they defy it," Mr Piccoli said.

"I think parents might understand the teachers' position if this were a genuine dispute, but this is not one of those things." The action also presents a tough first day at the office for the new director-general of education Michele Bruniges, who starts in her new position on Wednesday.

The Teachers Federation would not comment yesterday on the court move, but last week federation president Bob Lipscombe said the strike was in protest to the cut in teachers' real income over the next four years on an average of $75 after the government passed legislation that limited their annual pay rises to 2.5 per cent.

Teachers are due to enter a fresh round of pay negotiations at the end of this year.