Labor’s Education Counter-Revolution

LABOR’S EDUCATION COUNTER-REVOLUTION by Rob Durbridge, AEU Federal Industrial Officer State and Territory Labor governments are “pattern bargaining” against the AEU and its associated state unions to remove education quality guarantees from industrial agreements.

Howard’s Workchoices proscribed staffing guarantees as unlawful; Minister Gillard recently announced that the new IR laws will proscribe matters which don’t pertain to employment. This breaks an ALP promise to allow free collective bargaining.

Some of the quality guarantees in public education systems have stood for thirty years or more following union campaigns to reduce class sizes and workloads, to improve the quality of public education. In one way or another, these are now under threat.

When will they ever learn?

Bitter industrial and community campaigns developed over the last year whenever education union collective agreements have come up for renewal because Labor governments decided to impose a 3.25% per year cap on pay rises, and to bargain out staffing guarantees as cost offsets. This is all about AAA ratings and neo-liberal state treasury policies. How do they look now in the light of the crisis enveloping the global economy?

Commenting on the recent offer of a 6% interim pay rise by the incoming WA Liberal Government, Minister Gillard said it was acceptable providing it was accompanied by “productivity gains”. Read cuts to quality public education provision.

The Rudd government faces the loss of teacher votes in a major way if this continues…but that’s only several hundred thousand voters, many in key marginal electorates, so why worry? Watch the fortunes of the Blair Government, which followed the same path.

Western Australia

The WA Carpenter Labor government fell in September partly because of its failure to reach agreement with the SSTUWA prior to the election. The union mounted a major industrial and community campaign which won strong public support, but the dispute was unresolved at the time of the election. The Chief Executive of the WA IR Department told a Sydney conference in March that unless the SSTUWA agreed with the government it would file for an Enterprise Order to remove the award and collective agreement to strip out “managerial prerogative” from regulation of teachers’ work. That application is still on foot and would remove protections on workload and class sizes which have been included in collective agreements for more than a decade.

Northern Territory

The NT Henderson Labor government squeaked home in its election on August 9, also held during a bitter dispute with the NT Branch of the AEU which has involved repeated industrial action and work-to-rule campaigns. Since the election the arrogance remains with a successful application to suspend the bargaining rights of the branch to prevent protected industrial action. The provision the government used was inserted by the Howard Government, and the NT Labor government was the first employer to take action under the section! The suspension has been appealed by the AEU and a decision is expected shortly.

New South Wales

A longstanding staffing agreement was suddenly renounced by Minister Della Bosca whilst negotiations were proceeding between the NSW Teachers Federation and the Education Department. The issue has now flowed into the context of the salary negotiations for a new award to commence in 2009.

The Federation is conducting a major campaign of community and industrial action to achieve a new staffing agreement which guarantees staff to all public schools in the state and regulates transfers and appointments. The NSW Government is hoping to devolve staffing arrangements in much the same way the Victorian Kennett Government did in the 1990s, to shift the blame for staffing shortages and funding shortfalls to local schools and principals.

South Australia

The same ambition is evidently held by the South Australian government which wants to further devolve staffing arrangements to principals, while Treasury retains tight control over budget allocations. In so doing the government wants to scrap the machinery which they were forced to agree to when the AEU mounted an application for a federal award in 2002. This involves a staffing allocation document, flexible initiatives resourcing and a personnel advisory committee at the school on which staff are represented. This has worked well but the government claims the unions have a “veto” over principals’ managerial prerogative.

The AEU in SA has mounted a major community and industrial campaign and has strong community support to defend the quality provisions which date back more than three decades in one form or another. It has become evident that the government’s target is school services officers…non-teaching staff who are vulnerable because many of them are part-time and not permanent.

Victoria

The AEU Victorian Branch won an agreement with the Brumby government in the schools sector earlier this year, again after a major community and industrial campaign. To reach agreement the government had to abandon its interstate Labor colleagues on the salary cap and improve other conditions. Victorian school teachers at top of scale are now the highest paid in Australia.

But in the Victorian TAFE sector members are continuing to take industrial action because the government is pursuing cuts to conditions to offset the schools salary outcome.

right to strike