Teachers will now consider tribunal

Press, 24 February 1986, Page 1

Teachers will now consider tribunal

By

ASHLEY CAMPBELL

education reporter

Secondary teachers may be prepared to go to the State Services Tribunal to settle their pay dispute, says the president of the PostPrimary Teachers’ Association, Mr Peter Allen.

Mr Allen said last evening that if a special tribunal hearing could be arranged quickly, and did not postpone another union’s hearing, it would be considered by the P.P.T.A. “We would not consider pushing aside another State union that has been

waiting to have its claim heard, simply because the Government wishes to get itself off the hook,” he said.

The Minister of Education, Mr Marshall, said it was probable that a hearing could be arranged without pushing aside any other unions.

“When Mr Rodger indicated an April meeting late last week, he knew there was a day on the calendar with what seemed to officials as a very light programme. Certainly we would not want to push other people off,” he said. To page 5

Mr Allen said there was another matter to be taken into account.

“I would be looking for some sort of guarantee that the structure that has been agreed to twice now ... would be guaranteed.” Mr Allen said the tribunal usually settled with a percentage increase across the board, not the graduated increase the P.P.T.A. had agreed to. The statement by Mr Allen is a significant shift from- the association’s position last week. On Thursday he said teachers would not enter into any new negotiations. He also indicated that any hearing by the tribunal would be

too late to solve the teachers' retention problem.

Now Mr Allen has said they would not enter any new negotiations with individual Ministers. They would, however, consider negotiating with the Cabinet as a whole. “We do not want to risk going to any individual Cabinet Minister and come to an arrangement with him, only to find that it is not honoured by the Cabinet,” Mr Allen said.

“I think if they want us to go and talk to them, then we will, but it has to have the full authorisation of the Cabinet, and that has to be fully spelt out,” he said.

The responsibility now lay with the Cabinet to approach the association,

Mr Allen said. His comments followed calls by the president of the Secondary School Boards’ Association, Mr Glen Evans, and the Opposition spokeswoman on education, Miss Ruth Richardson, for the P.P.T.A. to agree to a tribunal hearing.

Miss Richardson said last evening that by taking industrial action the teachers would not only lose public support, they would also lose credibility-

Mr Allen said it was not the P.P.T.A. that had lost credibility, but the Government. The P.P.T.A. resorted to industrial action only because there had been no other option, he said.

The Government had

refused the teachers’ claim because it did not want other unions to expect high settlements, Mr Allen said, not because it disagreed with their case. “That, I believe, leaves a group of workers such as us with very little room for movement Of course the kids suffer, and it is an unfortunate situation,” he said. "It is a situation that we do not like, but we have been forced to take it. We want to get out of that situation as soon as possible,” Mr Allen said.

Teachers are due : to strike for one day ; tomorrow. At meetings they will be told of a national plan for continuing action. The Cabinet will discuss the dispute again today.