ADELAIDE — An Enterprise Agreement that provides a pay rise for education workers in South Australia and actually puts staff back into schools, without trade-offs, was certified on December 24. The South Australian Institute of Teachers/Australian Education Union and the Public Service Association achieved this victory after nearly two years of industrial and community campaigning.
The agreement gave education workers 11% backdated to December 1, then a further 6% spread over the next two years, with a clause allowing for the final payment to be negotiated for a potentially higher level. In addition, the staff cuts resulting from Labor and Liberal state government budgets over the past few years have been partly reversed. The agreement provides $18 million to be paid directly to schools for additional staffing, along with another $10 million for special education.
The preceding arbitration process also resulted in the creation of an award for Aboriginal education workers, which provided some guidelines and protection of their working conditions for the first time, along with a significant increase in salary. Their 17% will be paid in addition to the award increase.
MELANIE SJOBERG spoke to SAIT/AEU state president JANET GILES.
Question: SAIT/AEU has been conducting this campaign for two years. Can you outline the key features and tactics?
Our main objective was to ensure that we had protection of our members' conditions and to ensure that we had funding. So we needed to use a range of tactics.
One was to pursue federal registration and get out of the state industrial relations system. That was a useful industrial strategy, because it meant that the government could never drag us down to the commission and deal with our issues under the state system.
Secondly, we used a public tactic of raising the profile of education and the need for resourcing in opposition to cuts.
Question: How was the union able to sustain membership participation and enthusiasm for such a long period?
Partly through ongoing information. We used our journal as a campaigning voice. Our branch structure, which is workplace based, is a very powerful organising model. We could rely on our branch secretaries at each workplace to mobilise and organise members around key issues.
So keeping those people informed was important — educating our members really clearly about aspects like the pursuit of the federal system, explaining what it meant and what other AEU members across the country were doing, giving them a national perspective. Encouraging our members to link with the struggles and campaigns in other states helped ensure that members felt more powerful.
Then we used industrial action, but not just for industrial purposes. We learned from our previous campaign when there were cuts [under the Labor government]. At that time, we used mainly protest action linked to industrial demands.
From the beginning of 1996, we developed a clear plan to use industrial action in such a way that we didn't just wave our fists in the air to vent our spleen, but we used every strike as an opportunity to educate our members. So we spoke to members confidently and calmly about the issues, got them involved in setting the strategy.
This wasn't just during the strike actions; regular delegates' meetings were held so that our members set and owned the strategy, rather then us telling them what to do.
By the end of the campaign, there were two types of members: those that were saying, "We are finding this really hard, we will keep going but we are getting abused by our communities" — this came particularly from the country — and another group who were saying, "We need to go out forever in order to achieve our goals".
We listened to both those messages to make sure that we developed some action that met all their needs. That's when we put the opportunity for going out forever on the agenda, so that we could do some work around whether it was possible, and we put lots of money into public campaigning to get a positive message about our members into the community.
Question: Can you describe the types of industrial action taken?
We tried to develop strike action that unified people. Full-day stoppages, for instance, were really good unifying experiences, but we tried to mix the action over the year.
First up we started with a half-day strike, then into a full-day strike, then a period of rolling stoppages. That dispersed the feeling of solidarity, but it meant that the industrial action could go for a long period and receive extensive public attention. Then we went to another full-day strike and back into rolling stoppages.
At the same time, we pursued locally based action. The work bans were important because it meant that we didn't just call everyone out at particular times, but they had to deal with an industrial dispute at their workplace. This required members to deal with building solidarity between members and communicating with parents and students to educate them about the dispute.
Question: During the latter part of 1996, the union shifted tactics into arbitration. What impact did this have?
Once you go into arbitration, you have taken the dispute out of the hands of members and into the hands of lawyers. I think that unions should attempt to keep out of arbitration for as long as possible.
In some sense, our members were relieved because they had a perception that arbitration would give them a result: there were all these fair judges up there who would give the right decision. Then they started to recognise that it was going to take a long time, but at the same time they couldn't do anything; then they started to feel angry, frustrated and depowered. They became suspicious of what the government would do legally.
In a way we played into that thinking that arbitration was a saviour, because in essence we were arguing all along that moving to a federal award was going to save conditions.
Question: Can you talk about the relations with other unions and the role of union solidarity?
During the last 12 months of the campaign, we worked really effectively with other unions. It was a really interesting experience finding unions working together because they were interested in getting the issues resolved. This was without the help of the peak body , the TLC — peak union bodies could have messed it up.
Union officers who were in contact with the members worked really well together and showed that solidarity could work even when there are differences.
Question: SAIT/AEU had an orientation to community campaigning. Can you describe the methods that were used to develop this and how useful this was?
It is very hard to work in a community campaign from a central level; you need to rely on the local relationship. In some communities it worked well with a supportive school council, but in others they weren't so effective. It's not necessarily a reflection of how effective the members were but also the nature of the community and its own politics.
One site of contest was in the media, where the minister was determined to maintain his credibility and undermine our credibility with the public. I think in the end we won that battle because we didn't focus publicly on just the conditions and wages. We talked about student learning conditions, our ability to be able to educate kids and to have the time to prepare.
We can still learn a lot. We still operate in a mode of thinking that asks how can we get the community to support us, rather than how do we work with the community on an issue.
Question: Can you elaborate on the role of the media throughout the dispute?
The government responded to us, but more through the media than anything else. At the beginning of '96 we said publicly that we would launch an industrial campaign in pursuit of our federal award. That led to the government making a peace package and an offer in the state system, because they were worried by the media response, which was making education a big issue.
The Advertiser operated in such a way with the government that it educated our members about the bias in the media. If our members were disgusted by the Advertiser, they rang up, cancelled subscriptions and forced the media to listen to that consumer point. It helped a little to make the media fairer.
The media naturally is against unions so it was hard to get our view across. The media was scathing in its attacks on "teachers" and the campaign, and we decided that it was impossible to determine the agenda with the mainstream media. We focused on where we had strength, which was in our relationship with our parent communities.
Question: The conjuncture with the Liberal leadership coup within the state government appeared to have an influence on the outcome. How did SAIT/AEU assess this?
We had decided even when we went into arbitration that it would be better to have an agreement by Christmas. [Former Premier] Brown then got a bad public poll and foolishly responded to our agenda by stating that the dispute would be settled by Christmas. He meant arbitration because he was misinformed. Then [new Premier] Olsen took over and continued the same theme.
We responded, saying this is fantastic. We believe that we cornered the politicians around their own empty rhetoric and then they couldn't get out of it. The timing is everything: to be aware of the opportunities and take them.
The leadership change made them vulnerable, and we used that. Of course, we couldn't have done anything about that if we hadn't had a massive campaign over two years. I believe the ongoing education dispute had a major impact on the instability in the Liberal ranks.
Question: There are likely to be state elections early in 1997, what attitude will SAIT/AEU take?
Now that we have settled, we want to use the agreement as the launching pad to build public support for a reinvestment in public education. We want to make it electorally impossible for any government to make those sort of cuts again.
We need to build on the issues that are not yet settled, so that the government can't simply say we are complaining. One of the key elements will be targeting the minister for his lack of ability to listen to community needs and the decision making on economic grounds, not educational.
Education has suffered attacks under both Labor and Liberal; we don't support any particular political party. It will be education that will be our campaign. If you take a line on one of the parties, then you lose credibility in the community; you are seen to be more concerned about power.
Strategically we will consider putting the Liberals last, which won't necessarily imply voting for Labor, but it will clearly identify who is the latest enemy.
The days are way past when public sector unions in particular can rely on either party in government to look after them. The economic policies have shown that both those parties have no commitment to a quality public sector and universal community services. Basically Labor set up the agenda, and the Liberals are continuing it.
In the previous [state] election, running a SAIT candidate was found to be destructive for our organisation. Individuals running for political office, even when they have a noble motivation, are seen by members as using the union funds to feather their own political career. If we were going to do it, we would maybe do something collectively to look at an alternative political structure or an alternative candidate.
Question: Unions in the public sector in particular will be facing increasing attacks. What general lessons can be drawn from the campaign?
If you lose an active membership base, it is incredibly difficult to have a winnable campaign. You need to put a lot of energy into ensuring that members are part of a democratic structure so that they have a say. All unions should be prioritising the development of the membership, rather than trying to do deals or negotiate stuff without membership involvement.
The close link with the ALP historically, and the long period of the Accord, has deskilled unions so that they have forgotten how to campaign, forgotten the importance of membership activism. It's gong to take a lot of effort and energy to build that up again. Some unions have fallen into the trap of now trying to do deals with the Liberals.
The other aspect is not trusting the membership, taking the risk: if you ask them to take action, they actually might. We found that it is placing trust in members, and if it doesn't work, then ask why not and what has to be done to make it work.
The other lesson is that we've got to be careful in the AEU not to be too confident so that we forget our connection with the community.
We are not just trying to achieve better conditions for the members; we are trying to achieve a better education and a better society, more democratic and open. We don't want to end up like the pilots, industrially strong but out of touch with the community. Defence of public education itself is a cornerstone of a democratic society.