The NSW Teachers Federation sought a protected action ballot order from Fair Work Australia to give TAFE teachers and related employees who had been without a pay rise since January 2015 the opportunity to take industrial action.

NSWTF New England North-west Organiser Susan Armstead said members are to be congratulated for their resolve throughout their salaries campaign.

“Through their commitment to stand up for themselves a three year enterprise agreement has been achieved,” she said.

“The NSWTF had been negotiating with TAFE NSW for many months and sought an early resolution of the Agreement which would help rebuild the morale of teachers who continue to work in a system that has suffered significant cuts to courses, faced job losses, a drastic decline in student enrolments and massive student debt.

“TAFE members’ showed overwhelming support for industrial action in the protected action ballot with 91 percent of voters saying ‘Yes’ to the action. 

Ms Armstead said members wanted fairness and lobbied hard for the increased salary package.

“This wage agreement is long overdue under the state wages policy,” she said.

“The important thing about this is that TAFE NSW wanted to trade away teachers working conditions and we did not want to trade those conditions off.

“This is big win for TAFE teachers.”

TAFE NSW Managing Director Jon Black said they are pleased to have reached agreement with their teachers. 

“As well as maintaining all existing working conditions of our employees we will implement three trial roles, Head Teacher Band 3, Assessor and Educational Support Officer under the enterprise agreement,” he said.

“In addition to this, both parties have committed to work collaboratively on the development and implementation of the ‘One TAFE NSW’ plan.”