Teachers voted at stop-work meetings around Victoria on May 3 to begin an industrial campaign to improve working conditions. The Melbourne meeting was attended by more than 5000 teachers, and good attendances were recorded at meetings in Mildura, Wangaratta and Warnambool. The meetings were organised by the Australian Education Union, a recent amalgamation of the Federated Teachers' Union of Victoria (FTUV) and the Victorian Secondary Teachers' Association (VSTA). NORRIAN RUNDLE, a VSTA councillor, was interviewed by SUE BOLTON for Green Left Weekly.
Could you give the background to the dispute?
Teacher unions took a draft workload case to the federal Industrial Relations Commission, and the decision was handed down in February. Although the IRC stated that secondary teachers shouldn't teach more than 20 hours per week, and primary school teachers not more than 21.75 hours per week, it didn't rule on other key issues relating to workload, such as class sizes, leaving them to be negotiated with the Directorate of State Education (DSE). This decision was based on the NSW teachers award.
While the IRC included a lot of rhetoric about how overworked Victorian teachers are, by not ruling on class sizes, the decision guarantees that teachers will remain overworked. If teachers in many schools insist on teaching only the 20 hours, it is almost inevitable that schools will increase class sizes rather than increase staff.
Another statewide stoppage of teachers will be held on June 15, with half-day regional stoppages before that.
The meeting also endorsed the right of teachers to take 45-90 minutes of industrial action if their school is breaking conditions. That was something teachers weren't allowed to do while the workload case was being heard in the commission.
What strategy is the leadership of the teacher unions advocating to win the dispute?
The FTUV and the VSTA are using the industrial action to get back into the IRC: they can say to the IRC, "Look, our members are angry". That's why the leaders are advocating only limited industrial action. They think the issue will be won in the commission rather than through an on-the-ground campaign.
As soon as the Kennett government was elected, the teacher unions' strategy was to concentrate on winning a federal award. While the federal award protected some conditions, it didn't protect the most important conditions, class sizes and teaching hours. Both have increased significantly over the last two and a half years.
When the workload decision was handed down, it entrenched the worst working conditions. The maximum teaching hours in the decision are the maximum being taught in schools with the worst conditions. Now all schools will try to increase hours to the maximum the commission has allowed.
Basing the decision on the NSW teaching award does not take into account the fact that NSW teachers have three times as many support staff, and a much higher number of ancillary staff such as teacher aides.
The initial reaction of the FTUV/VSTA leaderships was to be stunned. Then they started to defend the decision.
The other actions the leaders have advocated are letterboxing in marginal seats, token publicity campaigns, letter writing and little actions in small clusters of schools.
Over the last two and a half years, the leadership has become very fond of "cluster actions" — industrial action in a small cluster of 10-15 primary schools and four or five secondary schools.
When there is pressure on schools to compete for students or face closure, then there is a pressure on teachers not to take action or their school might lose students to other schools where teachers haven't taken industrial action. Cluster actions have served to break down the solidarity that used to exist between teachers.
What is the attitude of union members to the strategy of relying on the Industrial Relations Commission?
While teachers have supported the stop-work and the campaign, people are cynical. In my workplace, people are saying that they'll take industrial action whenever they're called on to do so, but they assume that the leadership will cancel the industrial action whenever the IRC demands it.
The leadership has had a record of doing this. For example, the 90 days of industrial action against Kennett in early 1993 were called off very early in the campaign, when the union was called into the commission. It was never a serious campaign that was followed through.
Teachers do want to fight. That was evidenced by the big turnout for the stop-work meetings. What they're sick of is the little actions such as 45 minute stop-works in a small number of schools, which have no impact. If they're going to take action, they want it to have an impact and to be part of a serious campaign. This sentiment was reflected when teachers at the Melbourne stop-work meeting voted for an amendment from the rank and file group to ensure that regional industrial action, at least in Melbourne, be based on half the metropolitan area rather than just small clusters of schools.
What sort of campaign is needed?
We need a campaign that fights to return resources to the education system. That includes minimising workload, returning special needs teachers and the return of support staff.
The only way we can secure the return of resources to the system is to take the campaign to the streets and carry out a sustained campaign of industrial action.
The last time that teachers engaged in this sort of campaign was in the late '70s and early '80s. Then teachers won conditions on a school-by-school basis, by taking action in their own schools as well as statewide action. They didn't rely on the commission; they relied on their own strength. This was enough pressure to force the incoming ALP state government to reach a statewide industrial agreement.