Clive Haggar, Canberra
On June 6, the ACT government budget cut 120 secondary and 15 primary teaching positions, 10 itinerant and 90 support staff positions, and has foreshadowed the closure of 39 public preschools and schools.
In addition the government provided an inadequate pay offer during bargaining for a new collective agreement. In response, teachers have continued a campaign of rallies and work stoppages, following a second teacher vote for protected industrial action.
The Australian Education Union (AEU) offered the government an olive branch if the new education minister, Andrew Barr, withdrew the budget job cuts and entered into worthwhile negotiations. He failed to do this. Almost 2500 members stopped work on June 26, in the three weeks of rolling stoppages in August and on September 6, demonstrating a high level of participation across sectors.
Union members understand that while each sector is threatened in different ways, we need to stand together to support one another. With such strong member support, there may yet be a change in the government's position prior to further industrial actions.
ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope and Barr have not explained how a massive cut to teaching staff, and a substantial increase in workload for an already stretched workforce, can lead to improved outcomes for students, as they claim. They have used the budget to reduce ongoing operational support for schools, while claiming that the disruption created by the 39 schools targeted for closure is in the best interests of the system.
This educational fantasy land the government is trying to sell will lead to a skeleton bureaucracy struggling to support under-resourced schools. The ACT secondary system will become the worst staffed in the country, with the exception of Tasmania, yet it will still be expected to deliver school-based curriculum and assessment.
New teacher recruits will face a superannuation scheme that is, at minimum, 6.4% worse than their colleagues and worse than what is offered in Catholic and independent schools in the ACT. Experienced teachers' salaries are already 4.5% behind the NSW public school education system, and 4-5% behind independent and Catholic school teachers in the ACT, and this differential is likely to worsen.
No government school or Catholic system employer in Australia, except the ACT government, has required job cuts and other savings to pay a 4% CPI equivalent, or better salary outcome. The Western Australian government has just fully funded a 9% per year pay rise over two years, plus additional support for schools.
It is worth noting that the NSW/ACT Independent Education Union (IEU) defeated an attempt to organise a non-union agreement in NSW and ACT non-government schools, and take advantage of the federal industrial relations laws to move them out of the state industrial system by the NSW/ACT Independent Schools Association. The end result will be union collective agreements delivering a minimum of 16% over four years with other conditions' improvements.
The attempts by the Stanhope government to utilise the advantages given them by Work Choices have made it impossible for them to advocate against an industrial relations system they are perfectly comfortable using to their advantage.
Educationalists, parents, community activists, union colleagues, political players from all parties from all around the nation are watching with amazement and, in some cases, horror as the ACT government has set about destroying itself. In the process, it is inflicting enormous collateral damage on the public education system and its work force, previously among its strongest supporters for the more considered and progressive approach of its earlier years.
A government that prefers political spin, abuse and underhand practice to transparency, good faith negotiation and real consultation will have no future. The problem is that for public education and its teachers, such an outcome may be too late.
[Clive Haggar is the secretary of the Australian Education Union, ACT branch.]