Critical Times

John Heywood

Around 9000 members and supporters of the Australian Education Union (AEU) took industrial action in South Australia last Tuesday. It was the first time schools have closed for a full day in twelve years and the first time in around two decades under a Labor government. AEU members in the Adelaide metro area descended on Rymill Park where they began a noisy march to the steps of Parliament House. The rally was so large that it brought the CBD to a near standstill, completely blocking North Terrace (see photo).

The strike was called by the union after six months of negotiations with representatives from Government, TAFE and the Education Department led to two completely inadequate enterprise offers. The second offer was supposed to be “new and improved” but made no advances on the 3.25 percent pay increase in the original offer. The AEU has pointed out that 3.25 percent does not even equate to CPI which, for the 2008 March quarter, was running at well over four percent.

Although the government and some sections of the media have preferred to highlight the salary component of the AEU’s claim, the union has been at pains to point out that salary is just one of around five key components. Along with salary increases that aim to give SA educators wage parity with other states — currently they are the lowest paid in the nation — the union is seeking the inclusion of provisions to address workload, recruitment and retention, class sizes and professional development. So far, the government has failed to address the AEU’s claim in most of these areas and seems unable to negotiate in good faith.

Throughout the course of the negotiations, Michael Wright, Minister for Industrial Relations in South Australia, has referred to the EB process as “the usual argy bargy” and given the clear impression that he really doesn’t take the AEU’s claim for A New Agreement seriously. But by no means does he hold a monopoly on such indifference; Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith has been noticeably absent from the public debate and according to a source close to the AEU, has almost completely detached herself from the EB process. Apparently, her only direct communication with the union on the EB process came a few days prior to the scheduled strike where she announced that she would seek the intervention of the IRC in stopping the union’s planned action.

An issue that has proved instrumental in uniting the union membership and the community during the EB appears to be a government proposal for a new “per-capita” funding formula. Based on government figures supplied to the AEU, 175 schools will be worse off. The proposed formula would see a school’s funding change from term to term depending on enrolments. Typically, many of the sites to lose out are the smaller schools already struggling in an education system that is under-funded nationally to the tune of $2.9 billion per annum.

Also among the losers in the government’s proposed formula are nine Aboriginal schools. Perhaps the pro-mining Mr Rann was meeting with his big business buddies during the Apology and missed the Prime Ministers pledge to fix Indigenous education.

But it doesn’t stop there. TAFE workers, already burdened with the difficulty of finding ways to “compete in the market place”, will also suffer under the government’s proposed offer. Thanks to a restructuring of lecturer classifications, their offer would see around a quarter of staff completely miss out on any pay-rise at all over the next three years! To add insult to injury, the government wants to redefine “ordinary” working hours as 7am to 10pm, Monday to Sunday! Did I hear someone say WorkChoices was defeated?

One of the Rudd Government’s other election promises was the prioritisation of improvements in the area of Early Childhood Education. However with the introduction of “super schools”, Mr Rudd’s SA counterparts are proposing measures that will lead to the erosion of Early Childhood leadership and expertise. Preschools will be integrated into these larger sites and leadership positions will be reduced.

There’s no doubt that public education in South Australia is facing an insidious attack from the Labor Government. However, the AEU is mounting a strong campaign and so far seems to be winning the battle in both the community and the press.

The CPA supports the AEU’s campaign to defeat the Rann Government’s reactionary policies, policies that will ultimately increase the divide between the public and private education systems.

More information on the AEU campaign is available on their blog site 2008eba.org