Government Moves on Teachers

Date: 29 February 2000

The NSW Teachers Federation says the labour movement "should be surprised" that a Labor Government is proposing to use the penal clauses against a trade union.

The Premier today said the government would pursue legal action against the Teachers, after they refused to administer basic skills test today, despite an order from the NSW Industrial Relations Commission.

The union faces fines of up to $10,000 per day and $5.000 for each following day under the industrial Relations Act. Late today the parties were locked in legal debate in the IRC.

The move underlines degenerating relations between the government and the union, which is also locked in long-running pay talks.

"There is very little trust between teachers are the government which is why over 90 per cent of schools today refused to implement the ELLA tests," a Teachers Federation spokesman says.

The action took place after the government refused to guarantee the tests would be sued to rank schools and allocate resources.

"Teachers Federation has always been concerned at the way governments could have used the results of diagnostic tests. It is educationally unsound to use them for anything but individual diagnostic teachers," the spokesman says..

"All we were seeking from the government that the ELLA test results would not be the sole determinant for placing STLD (special teacher learning difficulties) teachers in schools."

For further information

Contact:	John Hughes
Union:	Labor Council of NSW
Phone:	0418 423 834
WWW:	http://www.nswtf.org.au

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