AEU e-Newsletter - Issue 28

In this issue:
The final stretch — schools ballots to be held this week
This is the week that every school should hold a secret ballot to ratify the new Schools Agreement - with every teacher and principal class officer entitled to vote.
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/28/ballots.html
Schools Agreement — So when do we get the money?
The exact date that members will see their pay rises depends on the outcome of this week's ballot and is then in the hands of the Workplace Authority, but our best guess is the money will flow in the pay period starting either August 14 or 28.
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/28/money.html
TAFE morale plummets as pay and casualisation make teachers consider new careers
TAFE bosses have put new obstacles in the way of an agreement for Victoria’s hard-pressed TAFE teachers, despite a new survey that found morale so low that three-quarters have considered leaving the sector in the past year.
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/28/tafe.html
Builders leader charged with refusing to attend interview
Noel Washington, Senior Vice President of the Victorian CFMEU, has been charged with refusing to cooperate with the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC). He is due to appear in the Geelong Magistrates court on August 8.
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/28/charged.html
Study shows public education at risk of hidden privatisation
The language of "educational reform" or "modernisation" is masking a growing trend towards privatisation of public education, according to a new study commissioned by Education International (EI).
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/28/study.html
AEU calls for massive investment and better standards for Rudd’s rebuild
The AEU is calling on the Rudd Government to establish a new standard for buildings and facilities in public schools after an independent report found a $2 billion annual shortfall in capital investment.
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/28/rudd.html
Enrol to Vote Week 2008 announced
Secondary schools are urged to help their students secure their right to vote, by taking part in the Australian Electoral Commission’s national Enrol to Vote Week in secondary schools from 28 July to 3 August.
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/28/enrol.html
AEU members get big savings on Apple computers
The AEU has negotiated significant discounts on the cost of a new Apple computer for union members.
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/28/apple.html
Community Campaign to protect bank workers
The Finance Sector Union is calling for the support of union members everywhere as its spearheads a community campaign against Westpac’s proposed $18 billion takeover of St George Bank and other competitors.
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/28/bank.html
Teachers feature in new collective bargaining ad
Unions will ramp up the campaign to scrap WorkChoices and bring in new laws that protect workers’ rights with the release of two new advertisements highlighting the value of collective bargaining for Australian workers.
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/28/ad.html
Zimbabwe trade unionists need your face
Tomorrow, unions around the world will stage protests in support of two Zimbabwean trade union leaders arrested for "inciting the public to rise against the government and communicating falsehoods" in their May Day speeches - and they need your help.
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/28/zimbabwe.html
Giveaways — Melbourne International Film Festival / Next Gen
To celebrate the return of the popular Next Gen schools program at the Melbourne International Film Festival, AEU E-News has four double passes to give away for any film at the festival (excluding the opening and closing nights).
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/28/giveaway.html
AEU e-Newsletter: http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/
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AEU agreement - school ballots to be held this week

From: AEUVB Registry [mailto:Melbourne@aeuvic.asn.au] Sent: Monday, 23 June 2008 4:42 PMSubject: AEU agreement - school ballots to be held this week
Dear Member

The AEU has been made aware of a vote NO email circulating via Edumail from a Matt Doric, Anthony or Joseph Triopodi purporting to be a statement from the Socialist Equality Party. Neither of these people are AEU members. As a result we have had requests from members to clarify the AEU’s position in relation to the ballot.

The final stretch — schools ballots to be held this week. This is the week that every school should hold a secret ballot to ratify the new Schools Agreement – with every teacher and principal class officer entitled to vote.

AEU council has backed the schools agreement; AEU delegate meetings have backed the schools agreement; now it is time for the entire teaching and principal class workforce to have their say as workplace ballots are held this week.

Secret ballots of all staff covered by the agreement will be conducted in every school and workplace. They will be conducted jointly by the school's principal and AEU Rep — if your school has not yet fixed a date, call the AEU NOW on (03) 9417 2822. All ballots must be completed by 5pm on Friday June 27.

This is a vital last vote — despite the overwhelming endorsement of the agreement by AEU members at the delegates ratification meetings earlier this month (where 89% backed the agreement), it will fall if it is not accepted by a majority of all staff covered by it. Arrangements should also be made for those members of staff who are not in school on the day of the meeting and cannot attend.

You can find out more about the ratification ballot process in this AEU agreement bulletin, http://www.aeuvic.asn.au/news/1213849947_15688.html
For more on the agreement and what it contains, go to the campaign website http://www.aeuvic.asn.au/campaigns/schools_agreement_08/ .

The key points of the agreement are:

• Top of the scale classroom teachers would now earn up to $75,500 a year — the highest pay in Australia

• The starting salary at $51,184 is also the nation's best

• Schools must now justify in writing every fixed-term contract they create — and it will be quicker and easier to be rolled over to an ongoing position

• Contract teachers are guaranteed holiday pay

• Some 16,000 teachers get a $10,000 pay rise overnight

• Immediate pay rise of 4.9% (with one-off payments for most teachers of $1000, $1,500 for most leading teachers 2 and $2000 for principals) followed by annual pay rises of 2.71% in January 2009, 2010, 2011 - higher than current forecasts for CPI

• Guaranteed pay rise at the end of the agreement

• No trade offs on holiday or pupil free days.

VOTE YES.

Yours sincerely

MARY BLUETT
Branch President

Why Victorian teachers should vote "no" to the AEU-Labor government agreement

Click here to download this article as a leaflet.
Teachers are set to vote in schools throughout Victoria next week on whether to accept or reject the Australian Education Union (AEU) and state Labor government's proposed industrial agreement that will determine wages and conditions in the public education system for the next three years. The Socialist Equality Party calls on all teachers to take a stand and vote "no". Such a vote must mark the first stage of a coordinated industrial and political campaign in defence not only of teachers' wages and conditions but the public education system as a whole—a campaign that directly poses the need for a struggle against both the AEU and Labor.
The union is presenting the state-wide secret ballot as a foregone conclusion, a mere formality. Next week's vote is a legal requirement under federal industrial relations legislation. If it were simply up to the bureaucracy, teachers would not be able to directly vote on the agreement at all. The AEU has aggressively opposed demands for a mass meeting to be held, through which teachers could openly cast a fully informed vote after a democratic discussion and debate.
The AEU has attempted to persuade teachers that democracy has been served and the agreement already ratified through the union-convened delegates' meetings held over the past weeks. On June 13, the union announced that 1,508 delegates (89 percent) had reportedly voted in favour of the agreement versus 186 (11 percent) opposed. A total of 68 percent of allocated ballots were cast—a record high.
This purported outcome in no way reflects the depth of opposition among teachers to the deal. In 2004, for example, some 22 percent voted against ratification of the three-year agreement—despite the fact that there was very little overt opposition at the time among ordinary teachers. This time round, the depth and breadth of oppositional sentiment has been impossible to deny, expressed through emails, blogs, and social networking sites as well as in discussions within schools and between union sub-branches.
No teacher should feel obliged to vote "yes" in next week's ballot out of respect for the delegates' vote. Some teachers have raised the possibility that the AEU directly rigged the delegates' meetings ballot. While this cannot be excluded, far more likely is that such a thing proved unnecessary. From the outset, the union deliberately organised the meetings to exclude the participation of ordinary teachers and deliver the desired result. In an email to the World Socialist Web Site, one senior teacher wrote: "I had strongly requested that I wished to speak at the ratification meeting and was given a verbal OK. I did not receive notification of the [Horsham] meeting (last Thursday); it was advertised through the email system, of which it seems, I was the only one not on the DL. Suffice to say, I missed the meeting and the opportunity to present the opposing side. Others who had attended the meeting, and felt betrayed by the AEU campaign, felt there was little choice but to support the proposed agreement."
Moreover, the delegates, each supposedly representing 20 union members, were selected on an entirely ad hoc and arbitrary basis. In some schools there was no sub-branch meeting or vote to select delegates, and the established, pro-agreement union representatives simply appointed themselves. In other schools, where only a marginal majority of teachers voted in favour, every delegate was bound to vote for the agreement, effectively disenfranchising large minorities in these schools.
In another measure aimed at outright intimidation, the vote was conducted at each meeting by delegates placing their card in either the "yes" or "no" box—with their name on the card! So this was a "secret ballot"—for everyone except the union officials, who no doubt kept a record of all those who failed to toe the line.
Delegates were encouraged to simply cast their vote without staying for the meeting, or participating in the extremely limited debate permitted by the union. Interestingly, those few meetings where SEP members or supporters were able to ask questions or speak in opposition to the deal recorded a significantly higher "no" vote.
No teacher should be under any illusion—if the agreement is ratified it will mark a serious defeat for the year-long industrial campaign.
Throughout the campaign, which included two mass meetings and a series of rolling stop-work protests, teachers won broad support from wide sections of the population. Central demands included a 30 percent pay rise over three years, no more than 20 students per class, and the establishment of permanent positions for those teachers on contracts who now comprise one-fifth of the total workforce. Yet the AEU-Labor deal delivers none of these demands. Instead, first-year and senior teachers receive a nominal pay increase that barely matches the official inflation rate, while everyone else will take a significant real wage cut. Amid escalating interest rates, house prices, rental rates, costs of groceries, transport, and many other necessities, teachers living standards—already substantially lower than those of most workers with comparable qualifications—will be driven down even further.
The impact of the agreement will soon be directly felt in classrooms throughout Victoria. Class sizes will remain unmanageable, and schools will continue to be understaffed. The agreement explicitly endorses the government's right-wing "productivity"-based education "Blueprint", in which underperforming schools will be further starved of funds, forced to close or amalgamate, and it introduces new classifications of teachers such as "executive class"—a means of smuggling in a form of performance pay. Ratification of the deal will serve to formally entrench this agenda, policed by the AEU.
The AEU, the Labor Party, and the political tasks confronting teachers
A number of teachers who oppose the agreement have nevertheless said they intend to vote "yes" because they feel nothing better can be achieved given the AEU's refusal to mount a campaign against the government.
The union has stopped at nothing to cultivate this sentiment. That is why AEU Victorian President Mary Bluett publicly kissed Premier John Brumby in gratitude and hailed the agreement as the best achieved in 25 years. The state's teachers, she crowed, would now be the best paid in the country. These fraudulent claims—made more than a week before teachers were even permitted to read the agreement—were faithfully repeated by every section of the media, leading the public to believe that the teachers' central demands had been met. This outcome was no "misunderstanding", but rather a deliberate attempt by Bluett and her colleagues to present teachers with a fait accompli. The agreement cannot now be rejected, the union has repeatedly claimed, because a "no" vote would appear greedy and cost teachers the support won throughout their industrial campaign.
The AEU leadership has also threatened that the Brumby government would respond to any rejection of the agreement by invoking the former Howard government's WorkChoices legislation, as it did with the state's nurses—halting negotiations, making illegal any further industrial action, and instructing the arbitration courts to determine the outcome. This would lead, the AEU insists, to the courts imposing a significantly worse settlement. The only realistic and rational course of action, therefore, is to endorse the agreement.
The logic of the union's position is that teachers are obliged, every three years, to simply shut up and swallow whatever deal the bureaucracy cooks up with the government, regardless of what measures are actually contained within it.
Teachers must not permit themselves to be intimidated by these threats. In the first place, it is not true that teachers would lose public support if they voted "no". Such an outcome—combined with a campaign explaining the true character of the proposed deal and exposing the union-government-media barrage of misinformation—could in fact develop into a focal point for the escalating opposition among working people to the bipartisan assault on public education, social services and living conditions that has unfolded over the past two decades.
Secondly, the spectre of WorkChoices and judicial arbitration only underscores the necessity for teachers to break out of the union-driven impasse and develop an independent political struggle against the state and federal Labor governments.
Brumby's threats, delivered by the AEU bureaucracy on his behalf, highlight the right-wing, pro-business character of his administration and again point to the absence of any fundamental differences between Labor and Liberal.
For the federal Labor government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd—whose election the AEU vigorously supported last November—the Victorian teachers' struggle is a crucial stage in its ongoing efforts to place the burden of the economic crisis squarely on the backs of the working class. Amid a growing crisis in the global economy, with the US in recession and the world's financial markets hit by a "credit crunch", Rudd has responded to corporate demands about inflation by pledging to suppress workers' wages. No less than three senior federal Labor ministers immediately responded to the announced teachers' agreement by assuring business, and the Murdoch press, that no "wages breakout" would be tolerated. Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner later admitted that the true nature of the teachers' deal was very different to the one touted by the AEU and state government in their "presentation for general public consumption".
The AEU functions as the conscious agent of the Brumby and Rudd governments, and the ruthless enforcer of their drive to achieve productivity benchmarks and "international competitiveness" by undermining public education and driving down teachers' salaries. No amount of pressure from below will alter this relationship—which is why the alternative to ratifying the agreement is not, as some have argued, forcing the union to renegotiate a better outcome. It is necessary to speak plainly—as long as teachers remain trapped within such a futile trade unionist framework they are doomed to face further defeats.
That is why a "no" vote in next week's ballot must mark the first salvo in an open rebellion against the AEU and the Labor Party. The Socialist Equality Party calls on teachers to elect rank-and-file committees of trusted teachers to advance their campaign, bypass the union's bureaucratic structures, and break down the imposed divisions between schools and union sub-branches, and between teachers in various states. That Victorian teachers remain largely uninformed about the industrial campaigns currently being waged by teachers in New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory for better pay and conditions stands as an indictment of the AEU's efforts to isolate them. The unification of these struggles should coincide with a turn by teachers to other sections of the working class fighting to defend their wages and conditions, including Qantas engineers, Holden car workers, and NSW power workers fighting the state Labor government's privatisation drive.
This campaign can only go forward to the extent that it is based on a new and independent political orientation. Contained within the Victorian teachers' dispute is a fundamental question: what should be the determining basis, and the daily priorities, of economic and social life? Should the enormous productive capacities and technological resources of the world economy continue to be guided by the profit motive and utilised for the benefit of a tiny minority, or should they to be harnessed to serve the social needs of the vast majority? Is public education to remain an under-resourced, second-rate system reserved for those whose parents are unable to afford private schooling, and whose central task is simply to provide students with the skills demanded by business—or should billions of dollars be spent to ensure a free, universally accessible, quality school system that gives all children the opportunity to fully develop their talents, capacities, and interests?
The latter alternative is incompatible with the dictates of big business and the "free market". It requires nothing less than the revolutionary reorganisation of society along socialist lines. There are no easy solutions or short-cuts. We encourage teachers—and all workers—to study the history and program of the Socialist Equality Party and make the decision to fight for its growth and development as the new mass party of the working class.
The WSWS invites your comments
See Also:An eyewitness account of a Victorian teachers' union ratification meeting[17 June 2008]Two letters and a reply on the teachers' dispute in Victoria, Australia[6 June 2008]Victorian teachers' union opposes mass meetings to discuss industrial agreement[3 June 2008]Australia: Demand mass meetings to reject Victorian teachers' union sell-out![20 May 2008]

To Stay Or Not To Stay (in the AEU)?

89% voted yes! Why?
1. Many teachers believed that once our industrial campaign had been halted it would be too hard to restart the campaign again.
2. Teachers also believed that the public were convinced that we had all received a huge pay increase and would see us as greedy and unreasonable.
3. Many did not think that the AEU Leadership was capable of getting a better deal. In fact the AEU Leadership themselves, all along have been saying that they can’t get a better deal!
4. We had lost our trump card by calling off the campaign just before the NAPLAN tests.
5. Brian Henderson kept telling us that the government would now end our bargaining period and force us before the Arbitration Commission where we would get less money. He also said that the government would use Workchoices against us. All the paid AEU organizers were spreading this line as well.

Many of those who voted yes did so because they felt they had no choice. The AEU Leadership took away our choice!

Where to Next?
Stay in the union. Because most members aren’t actively involved in the AEU the current Leadership can do what it does. Leaving or becoming less active only gives them more power. Without unions we wouldn’t have any of the gains: such as maximum number of classes per week, maximum number of extras per week, LSL, even equal pay.
The opposition to this deal showed many teachers the truth about it. The opposition did this without any organization. Imagine if we planned and organized ourselves how much more effective we could be!
So get more active in the AEU. Stand for AEU Council. Being on council is not an onerous task. It means going to council meetings (held at Trenerry Crescent, Abbotsford) 8 times a year on a Friday during school hours. CRT coverage is paid to the school. It's really vital to get more independent minded teachers on Council. You have ‘what it takes’ to be on Council = the interests of the members at heart.
Join with us- Teachers Alliance- to build an alternative. We are seeking to work with others to create a network of AEU members and provide alternative views to that of the current leadership.
Attend our July 26th meeting at 2pm at Dantes Cafe(150-156 Gertrude Fitzroy) to discuss these ideas.
Organise meetings in your area. We’re happy to help and come along.
Send us your ideas.
Convince others to stay and focus on the next stage.

You may say that I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will live as one

DEECT Announces procedures for all staff to vote on agreement

• DEECT memo (S197-2008)
• Proposed Victorian Government Schools Agreement 2008
• Joint statement from the Department and the Australian Education Union
• Information statement for employees
• Frequently asked questions
• Approval process – Principal Guidelines
• The Australian Education Union also has a website dedicated to the proposed workplace agreement and this can be accessed at : http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/campaigns/

Yes to the agreement but Victorian teachers are divided.

Mary Bluett the president of AEU Vic defending a deeply divisive pay deal with gains won for those at the top and bottom of the scale by saying “you are a long time at the top”.
It is not unreasonable to suggest that some of the leadership have been too long at the top. Some time at the bottom of the class may bring them back to earth. While the majority voted at the ratification meetings to accept the deal it belies the deep divisions and discontent with the AEU Vic’s leadership and with the ALP governments both state and federal. The question we ask is, who is representing “working families”?

The AEU leadership may like to maintain the pretence of political independence from their ALP masters, but sealing the deal with a kiss reveales our leadership’s special relationship with the ALP is much to intimate. This same State Government chooses to denigrate the collective actions of concerned and responsible citizens through the corporate mass media, bankrupting them in the courts, and generally avoiding any serious public discussion and dialogue about any of our concerns. Both the union leadership and the ALP have displayed contempt for any claim that they genuinely represent “working families”.

It is clear that the conditions of daily life are getting worse rather than better. Rest assured it will be global and national economic and political events that will eventually burst the bubble our current leadership live in. From truck drivers in Spain, to teachers in Pakistan, and taxi drivers in Melbourne, to fisherman in Lakes Entrance, workers are being forced to protest against the impact of rising global oil prices on our lives. Those who suggested that arguing for the continuation of the campaign was just being “radical” betray their naiveté. We all have car tanks to fill, mortgages and rent to pay, food to be put on the table and children to cloth.

Attracted by the enthusiasm and heightened expectations of their fellow teachers unprecedented numbers of teachers joined the union in short time – 5000 plus over a period of 5 months – while some principals actively encouraged their staff to join the union and involve themselves in the campaign. Time and again the point was made that the AEU campaign was not just a wage claim but equally importantly about improving the condition of state schools and addressing the very significant workload issues we will still have to deal with.

The damage done to the growing solidarity and strengthening of the union - from graduates to principals – is the most gut wrenching aspect of prematurely ‘kissing- off ‘ our campaign. What ever the future holds for us there is one guarantee, and that is we will only get the strength we need from the collective, organised strength of the union. What ever we think of this deal it is an absolute truth that it would not have been won without the collective strength and activity of union members.

The negotiations were never in “good faith” on the government’s part. Can we forget how the minister accused teachers of stealing time from their students, and defrauding the government over curriculum days as extra holidays? The State Government’s preferred bargaining method was to use the reactionary Workchoices legislation that their federal counterparts wish to retain. The government’s belligerence further fuelled the ongoing campaign of our detractors who undermine and malign the work of thousands of teachers in the public education sector. That was obvious to all the community, and it is why we received the support we did when we were forced to undertake a prolonged campaign of industrial action.

The collective welfare and the goodwill of our union’s members have been sacrificed for political expediency, saving face for the state and federal governments, by pushing a deal through so as not to upset the national testing program. The announcement by the union that there was an overwhelming ‘Yes’ vote does not represent the sentiments of all the membership. The extreme differences between the divisions – accomplished teachers did very badly while graduates and expert teachers won significant wage catch-ups - is the reason why sub-branches and staff rooms are deeply divided on the wages issue.

The Government’s premature announcement of a done deal to the press before union members saw the terms of the agreement, let alone ratify it, was a mischievous act of political sabotage. The union leadership should have warned them off. It beggars belief that our leadership had no control over the government’s actions. The union leadership’s threatened that if we voted No we would have to go back to square one with all bets off and that would then mean remounting the campaign which would then “alienate the community” who had supported us.

Many teachers felt that they had no choice but to vote Yes to the agreement. They felt that if the union leaders were saying it was a good deal then it was unlikely that they would have the necessary fire in the belly to reignite the campaign. It is true that once an industrial campaign has been wound down that the impetus is lost. The proper process would have been to present objectively the terms of the agreement that had been negotiated to that point and then put the pros and cons to the members for discussion. Instead they assumed that there would be agreement and that their job was to ‘sell’ it to us. Treating members with such contempt can only weaken the union by encouraging counterproductive cynicism.

We need a union leadership that is not afraid of its members and instead encourages us to voice our concerns and actively participate in our sub-branches, in the union state branch, and the labour movement generally. Let us not waste the good work done to build the union to date; we all have a better world to win.

The words penned by Ben Mulvogue in 1915, who was then secretary of the Builders’ Labourers’ Union still resound today, “The union has made possible progress not only for the working people, but advancement in many other directions – morally, socially, and intellectually – and is traceable to the existence of the organisation of the workers.”

Peter Curtis
AEU Vic Branch and supporter of Teachers Alliance

Deal is Done !

Hi Colleagues,

This morning Mary Bluett announced that the AEU would be formally accepting the deal struck between the AEU and the Brumby government. As far as we know a majority of AEU members voted yes at all of the ratification meetings.

While Teachers Alliance along with many other individual AEU members campaigned strongly against this deal we accept that the majority has determined to accept it.

We applaud the strong and inspiring committment shown by the majority of AEU members during our industrial campaign. As the AEU officials have said on several occassions it was this committment of the members to campaign hard and to continue industrial action which got the government to begin to negotiate more seriously after months of stalling.

So it seems such a pity that we have been forced to accept second best. We were planning our strongest and most powerful industrial action; to stop work during the NAPLAN tests (and there were talks in the other States of a national stopwork against the NAPLAN tests if Victoria went ahead) when the plug was pulled on our campaign and our officials announced that they had negotiated the "deal we have been fighting for"!!!!!!

We also had enormous support from the public. We remember pedestrians clapping us as we marched through the city streets. There were many letters in the daily papers arguing for us. Additionally there was no real pressure from the government on us to give in. We could have taken the campaign further to get a much better deal and a fairer deal for all teachers.

The information we have received from many teachers who voted yes is that they are not very happy with this offer at all. However they feel that once the "plug" had been pulled from the campaign it would have been too hard to restart it and that we had lost the support of the public because both Brumby and our union leaders had described the deal as wonderful. Consequently we would have been seen as greedy. Additionally many teachers said that they just don't trust this leadership to do better.

Of course there are teachers, who are happy about the deal because they personally will benefit.

However it is important to understand that the process of voting is also quite misleading. In many AEU sub-branches the vote was split but they still tied their delegates to vote according to the majority. In other sub-branches they tried to reflect the split vote and determined that some of their delegates should vote yes and others no. Still other sub-branches did not tie their delegates at all, which is actually the way the process is supposed to work. Why?

We have ratification meetings where discussion and debate takes place. This is designed to give delegates the opportunity to hear different viewpoints, especially from other sub-branches. Delegates should be able to decide which way to vote after having heard this discussion and debate. Obviously they are expected to take into account the way their sub-branch voted and the opinions expressed in their sub-branch meetings and then be prepared to report back and explain which way they finally cast their vote.

If sub-branches tie their delegates there really is no need for a discussion or debate at the ratification meetings. In fact there is no need for a meeting. We could all just send in the results of the votes from sub-branches. However the AEU has a tradition of making this form (as opposed to a mass meeting vote) of ratification more democratic than a referendum process.

Mary Merkenich
AEU Councillor
Teachers Alliance
view our web site at www.teachers-alliance.org

Ratification Meeting - about 60% FOR agreement

At the June 2 ratification meeting, our branch delegates reported that the vote wenat about 60% FOR the agreement and 40% against.An interesting and unexpected aspect of the procedures was that all delegates had to add their own personal details to the vote cards that had already been authentricated by the AEU ballot allocation. this process personally identifies the individuals that vote YES or NO. interesting !Our members wondered whether the voting patterns or personalities would be inspected or remembered by the AEU ?

You want good teachers? Then pay them extra

Farrah Tomazin June 2, 2008
Other related coverageOverseas teacher drive urged Canberra urged to take charge AdvertisementIn schools, resistance to performance pay is finally waning.
WHEN Premier John Brumby and education union chief Mary Bluett last month announced a new wage deal for Victorian teachers, it was hailed as the best enterprise bargaining agreement in 25 years.
So happy were both parties that they sealed the deal with a kiss: an unusual yet potent symbol that, after 14 months of negotiations, three state-wide teacher strikes and five weeks of rolling school stoppages, the dispute was finally over.
But now that the dust has settled, cracks have emerged in the $2 billion agreement.

more....

Daylesford S.C. Branch Resolution

Daylesford Secondary College AEU Meeting 20 May 2008
Resolutions

“That the Daylesford S.C. Branch of the AEU reject the proposed Schools Agreement 2008 as inadequate and inequitable and call upon other branches to follow suit.”

Carried Unanimous

“That the Daylesford S.C. Branch of the AEU censures AEU President, Mary Bluett, for misrepresenting the proposed Schools Agreement 2008 as a major salary win for teachers when this is patently unjustified by any objective analysis.”

Carried Unanimous

“That the Daylesford S.C. Branch of the AEU condemns the AEU leadership for issuing press releases/information which has resulted in a public impression that all teachers are getting a $10,000 pay rise.”

Carried Unanimous

We are the members, and together .....

We are the members, and together ... we are strong.
The only claim we’d like to make ... is to see ... justice done.
We paid our union dues and we rallied for fair pay
It is teachers at the coal-face, that executive’s betrayed.

We are teachers - united, and we don’t believe their spin.
The fact the union’s pushing it is the real bloody sin
What they need to recognise is what we really want.
Is a fair go for ALL teachers and ... security for jobs.

Come along, and tell the union.
Stand together, vote NO one and all.
We're after fair pay, and a real say.
Members united, together for the cause.
Teachers united, together for the cause.

We're a powerful collective, and it needs to be said.
it’s not right for unions and governments to share the one bed
No ambit claims or unfair aims –this ones a dud and you knew it
Its time to renegotiate - SO DO IT MARY BLUETT!

For a graduate from uni ... there’d be somewhat more.
But it’s not just them but EVERYONE that we’ve been fighting for
We've had enough, we're voting NO ... together hand in hand.
Education revolution ... for the children of our land.

Come along, and tell the union.
Stand together, vote NO one and all.
We're after fair pay, and a real say.
Members united, together for the cause.
Teachers united, together for the cause.

Lyrics readapted by Lisa Shukroon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrhmGhaDkdo&feature=related

We are the teachers

You spin me right round....

Many of us not only took strike action but attended rallies - I think we should all make the symbolic gesture of going to the AEU ratification meeting to voice our "NO" loud and clear - even if we can't vote. I might even have a go at re-penning some sing-alongs. We all know how stirring they were at the rallies - unfortunately the only lyrics that comes to mind for our esteemed executive is "you Spin me right round"...
Cheers,
Lisa

Vote No and continue the campaign.

Why did AEU Council call off the most powerful weapon in our campaign (NAPLAN stopworks) before the deal had even been reported to members?

Teachers Alliance www.teachers-alliance.org

We have 85% of the public on our side, supporting our bid for a just and equitable wage deal and improved learning and teaching conditions for their children. They also understand the toll that contracts exact on individual teachers and school communities. We have joined up thousands of members and raised the political consciousness of thousands more. Never have we been in such an excellent position to wage a successful campaign. Mary Bluett argues that voting ‘NO’ will mean that we go back to square 1 and lose public support and that to restart the campaign will be difficult. The logic of this argument is that once the AEU Council recommends any agreement for ratification, the membership has no choice but to accept it. Do Mary Bluett and her team not value the input of the members and regard the ratification process as a charade? We clearly need a different process of ratification. We need one that allows members to make the decision about calling off any industrial action and whether or not to reject or accept a deal. CONTINUE THE CAMPAIGN! When it is explained to the public that the deal was a fraud and unjust and there were no improvements on class sizes, they will continue to support us.

____________________________________________________________________________Please copy this leaflet and distribute it to members at your school and other schools.

Download this leaflet from our web site and email to your colleagues.

Contact us at teachersalliance@hotmail.com

For more information go to our website www.teachers-alliance.org

Apples again....

Translation of salary rises in the proposed new agreement taking account of movements in the CPI.

Old agreement	New-agreement	May 11 2208 rise	Jan 2009	Jan 2010	Jan 2011	Net % movement by 2011 #
E3a 66,267	E4 75,500	13.6	2.9%	2.9%	2.9%	rise of 5.3
E3 65,414	E3 68,619	4.9	2.9%	2.9%	2.9%	fall of 3.4
E2 63,447	E2 66,556	4.9	2.9%	2.9%	2.9%	fall of 3.4
E1 61,539	E1 64,554	4.9	2.9%	2.9%	2.9%	fall of 3.4
A5 59,401	A5 62,312	4.9	2.9%	2.9%	2.9%	fall of 3.4
A4 57,755	A4 60,585	4.9	2.9%	2.9%	2.9%	fall of 3.4
A3 56,154	A3 58,906	4.9	2.9%	2.9%	2.9%	fall of 3.4
A2 54,598	A2 57,273	4.9	2.9%	2.9%	2.9%	fall of 3.4
A1 53,084	A1 55,686	4.9	2.9%	2.9%	2.9%	fall of 3.4
G4 50,184	G2 52,643	4.9	2.9%	2.9%	2.9%	fall of 3.4
G3 48,793	G1 51,184	4.5	2.9%	2.9%	2.9%	fall of 3.8
G2 47,441
G1 46,127		11.0 *1	2.9%	2.9%	2.9%	rise of 2.7

# This estimate aims to differentiate between ‘money’ and ‘real’ wages. That is, the changes in salaries after movements in the CPI have been taken account of.

In this case they are the following: (1) Our last pay rise was in October 2006 and the CPI has risen by about 5% since. Therefore we needed to gain 5% to put us back in the position we were 18 months ago. (2) Currently inflation is running at slightly over 4% p.a. While it if difficult to estimate future CPI rises, it is likely that the combined rises over the three years duration of this agreement will be about 12%. Further increases in salaries of this magnitude will be necessary to maintain real wages.

Hence calculation for the top of the scale is: rises 13.6 + 2.9 +2.9 + 2.9 = 22.3% inflationary effects 5 + 12 = 17%. Net rise in real wages 5.3%

It is important to note that teachers can make no further pay claims for the duration of this proposed agreement.

BK May 19 2008

1 This classification will no longer exist and teachers will begin on the new G1 which equates with an 11% pay rise.

The pay rise you may not have heard about!

The restructure to the incremental scale and the removal of the bottom two levels has resulted in an interesting situation. Any teacher who gains a new appointment will move to the appropriate increment point based on their years of service. For example a teacher who is currently a G4 earning $50,184 now on a contract would move in this agreement to G2 being $52.643 + $1,000. However when they get a new contract or are appointed to an advertised on-going vacancy in the following year they would translate on appointment to A2. That means their salary will be $58,825 in January 09! This also includes teachers on a contract who are translated to ongoing positions under the new agreement!

James Rankin

A clever nation needs its teacher shortage filled, pronto (Age letter, NAOMI SCHWARTZ, Brunswick)

As a bemused member of the general public, I read The Sunday Age editorial, "A clever nation needs its teacher shortage filled, pronto" (May 25) with surprise and a degree of shock. How is it that we are hearing about teacher shortages and a fast ageing workforce just a fortnight after the government, the media and the Australian Education Union all proclaimed Victorian teachers as "the highest paid in the country"? Those greedy teachers are rolling in it, and yet we still can't staff our schools? Or maybe, since the "largest grouping of teachers in Victorian schools is those aged 50 to 54", the problem is that young people these days are just plain lazy. But as a talented young teacher in her eighth year in the profession, with two degrees and head of a department in a large inner-city high school, I can answer the question with ease. It's an issue of fair pay. It takes more than 11 years to reach the top pay rate, and in the meantime I earn a paltry percentage of what my interstate colleagues do - regardless of life experience, education or extra responsibilities in my school. Next year, as a teacher with nine years' classroom experience, I'll be $13,000 behind my interstate colleagues, and that's after the fabulous "agreement" with the State Government. I am not greedy. I am not lazy. I am angry and I am the future of your education system.

A brief summary of why we should vote NO to the Agreement

A brief summary of why we should vote NO to the Agreement:
1. 1. For most salary classifications the 2011 salary is about $10 above what it would have been under the “joke” 3.25% deal.
2. 2. This is less than inflation (4.2%) and leaves us in a very weak position from which to negotiate the Agreement for 2012 and beyond.
3. 3. The union’s 5.2% minimum figure is a sleight of hand! See point 1 and PTO.
4. 4. Only G1s and E4s will be better paid than NSW. All otherclassifications are behind, by up to $13,000.
5. 5. G3s go to the same salary as G1s with 2 years less experience, and will progress exactly the same up the pay scale forever. LT2s, too.
6. 6. People whose increments move from January to May will get no compensation in 2010, 2011 or for the rest of their careers.
But for me the biggest reason is the incredible spin campaign of the union.

All points above are downplayed by the union and points 3 and 4 relate to a massive degree of deliberate deception of union members by union officials. This is grounds to vote NO, and grounds to kick Brumby and Bluett out!
Russell T. Edwards
PTO for details on the above points.
Further explanation on points above: .
1. Example:E1 currently: $61539E1 May 2011 under Agreement: $69946E1 May 2011 under 3.25% yearly rises: $69934
.Difference: $12 2.
2. If we have to fight for big rises just to catch up on ground we lost from 2008—2011, trying to actually break new ground will be next to impossible. .
3. The actual underlying percentage increase for most classifications is 13.66%. Compare to 13.65% for the 3.25% deal. .The union’s 5.2% figure comes about by the following calculation: (2011 salary + 2008 bonus – 2007 salary)/3 . Note, it includes the 2008 bonus as a part of 2011pay! And, it divides by 3 years when the Agreement stipulates no more pay claims for 3.6 years. 3.
4. G1s and E4s will be better paid than NSW only by a few hundred dollars, and only for a few months until the new NSW agreement comes out. All other classifications are at least $1500 short, most are in excess of $5000 short, and the worst is $13000 short. 4.
5. This is because G1 and G2 are abolished. G4 and above see the same problem to a lesser degree, only getting one extra increment’s worth of reward for more two years’ worth of extra experience. LT2-1s and above also cop it, with LT1-1, LT1-2, LT1¬3 going to the same pay as LT2-1. 5.
6. Example: Mary normally increments January 1st. In 2009 she has to wait an extra 5 months to go from A1 to A2, a pay rise of $1630. In so doing she misses out on 5 months of extra pay, or $679. But, she gets paid exactly this amount in May as compensation.
However, she takes a similar hit in 2010 and 2011 with no compensation. She has to wait until May 2010 for her rise of $1720. She misses 5 months of extra pay or $716. A slightly larger loss occurs in 2011, and she will enter all future agreements 5 months behind on the progression scale.

Russell Edwards

Resign and jump two salary increments

Many teachers are seriously considering Brent Houghton's comments in relation to resignation. Resign. Reapply for your job (or if you're up for a change - at another school). When you are rehired under the new agreement, you will jump two salary increments - simple as that. Of course, if you love your school and wish to retain your position without threat, you remain two years behind those with the same experience and less to lose. Many senior teachers and principals have said to me that very few will attempt this. But given everything that has happened with this 'agreement' process, I do indeed wonder. It certainly adds an extra dimension of chaos into the system. To view further details, go to www.victeachers.wordpress.com

AEU Visit (Brian Lennon)

We had a visit from an AEU rep as well, who was honest about the way in which the union "negotiated" this deal. It raises very big question marks indeed, I think, that the negotiator(s) accepted Brumby's figures on inflation -- 3% this year and 2% the next two years - as their starting point on the negotiation. All they had to do was check on the net for the Reserve Bank's figure on underlying inflation this year of 4.5% and their prediction that they would not get it under 3% the next two years. What sort of integrity (or lack of) was this negotiation conducted with if the AEU accepted Brumby's figures instead of the Reserve Bank's as their starting point? The AEU leadership just HAS to be doing something unacceptable to basic decency and respect for the members to START negotiations this way. They just have to be incompetent ... or worse.
What a shambles. For mine, it beggars belief that anyone with any sort of self-respect would vote to confirm such a dodgy process.
Brian Lennon

FORUM: What do you think about the Agreement negotiated by the current leadership?

• Do you want more say in AEU policy?
• Do you want better conditions for teachers and students?
• Have your say at the Teachers Alliance forum

When: Saturday July 26th at 2pm
Where: Dantes 150-156 Gertrude St Fitzroy

This campaign has exposed the problems in our union. Many teachers, who are disappointed with and angry about this deal are considering withdrawing from the union. Teachers Alliance argue that it is much more effective and in our own interests to remain in the union and to ensure the problems are eradicated!

We need a strong and democratic union that fights for our interests and for our students. There are many of us who believe this. We should not be put off by any setbacks but see this as a golden opportunity to change things. We hope that this forum can be a start for such a process.

Imagine a union that fights for pay justice for all teachers, that fights to end contract teaching, to improve our working conditions including those of CRT teachers, reduce class sizes, increase the funding to government schools, to get parity of conditions between primary and secondary teachers and to get rid of the VIT. The current union leaders will argue that this is "pie in the sky". That is because they have been out of the classroom for too long and because they have no vision. Those who aim for the lowest goals never change anything significant.

Mary Merkenich AEU Councillor Teachers Alliance
View our web site at www.teachers-alliance.org

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Dear Mary Bluett (Joanne Lockwood)

Dear Mary,

As a teacher of five years experience I feel it is about time MY union heard about MY concerns and not just of those in their first year of teaching or those Leading Teachers heading towards the end of their careers. It seems the Union has forgotten teachers like me exist, we certainly have not been considered in the latest agreement!

I had the opportunity, this afternoon, to listen to Meredith Peace discussing the terms of the latest agreement, all of which I had read and understood from the information provided on the Union’s website. Disappointingly, I was not given the chance – in the ½ hour session – to ask the questions that were concerning me, as an A1 teacher. Granted this was not solely her fault – the few questions that were heard were related to leading teacher changes – but I did not need to hear information that was readily available. This session should have primarily been a chance for members to ask questions and voice concerns, an opportunity it seems that the Union has gone out of its way to suppress.

I have been a union member since my first day as a Victorian Government school teacher and have always recognised the need and importance of unions within our profession. However, I feel betrayed and ignored by the current Union executive; my fees would have been better placed in my bank account than into employing the individuals who have negotiated this new agreement!

I have a number of specific questions and criticisms that I hope the Union will address:

1) Why did the AUE Victoria allow the government and the media to firstly release details of the agreement before members were told and more importantly, why did the union sit back and allow the media to continuously claim that we will now be the highest paid teachers in the country?
I was appalled when we were finally given specific details – several weeks after the in principle agreement was made – only to find that it is just 1st year teachers and those at the top of the scale who would in fact be better paid than teachers in NSW. For the rest of us somewhere in the 11 years in between the bottom and the top, we will be paid less, up to $13,000 less!
I was also increasingly angered over the lack of communication with members and the misleading information that was eventually provided (e.g. claiming that I would be given a 25.54% pay rise, which is clearly not the case in reality). It seems quite convenient that no details were released until after the NAPLAN testing was underway (and even then it was limited and unclear).

2) Why has the Union failed to clearly state the situation for teachers in the middle (G3-E3a)? Could it be that this lack of information is because this agreement does absolutely nothing for the teachers in this bracket? There seems to be absolutely no incentive for teachers in my position to continue, long term, in the profession. Considering we are starting to face a teacher shortage crisis and that there are fewer and fewer experienced teachers around to take on leadership positions, this lack of focus on the middle band seems counter-productive.
3) What has the Union done to address the workloads of teachers which have increased steadily over the years? I attended all the stop work rallies this year and last year, proudly carrying my AEU sign “Overworked and Underpaid” – I still seem to be in this position and will be until at least 2012!! And that’s saying nothing about class sizes, which have yet again been left off the agenda.

4) Lastly, regardless of how the Union chooses to spin the facts of this agreement, it is a 4 year, not a 3 year agreement. This locks members out of negotiations for salary and conditions until 2012 and allows us to, once again, lag significantly behind the rest of the country. Secondary to this, considering the average age of teachers in this state, many current teachers will have retired, leaving those who have been most disadvantaged by this agreement (and who choose to stay in teaching despite this), to fill the gaps.

Having been to the stop work meetings and listened carefully to the speakers and the other teachers I know, it was clear that in this negotiations we, the members, did not want our union to cave into a second rate agreement, as has happened in the past. We did not want to compromise on our goals. And yet here we find ourselves in the same position. If we ratify this agreement we may as well have taken the government’s initial 3.25% offer in January!

It is time for a change in direction from the Union and a change in those running it.

Yours Sincerely

Joanne Lockwood (Clyne) Viewbank College

Wondered why AEU Councillors voted Yes?

Dear Colleagues,

Many of you have probably wondered why the majority of AEU Councillors voted for this agreement, which many if not most classroom teachers think stinks?

Please take a few minutes to read this and you may understand why.

Yesterday AEU Council met. the primary and secondary sector meet first, separately to deal with their own specific issues. Then we meet as a joint council and finally as Branch Council, which means primary, secondary, early childhood and TAFE. SSO's join in from the beginning and attend the relevant separate sector meeting and then join in the Joint and Branch Council meetings.

At both primary and secondary council meetings yesterday we had to vote to fill vacant council positions. At both primary and secondary there 2 vacant positions. At primary 2 AEU members nominated for each position and at secondary there was only 1 nomination for one of the positions but 3 for the second.

The rule pertinent to such situations reads as follows; Where the unexpired portion of the term of a position in which an extraordinary or casual vacancy occurs does not exceed three quarters of the term of the position, the relevant sector council may appoint a financial member of the sector or sub-sector and the relevant region or group of regions or the relevant TAFE institute to fill the position.

At secondary sector Justin Mullay, Deputy Vice President of secondary, read out the 3 names for the position, for which 3 members had nominated and then moved a motion that we appoint one of them. Teachers Alliance Councillors were surprised, to say the least and I objected and asked why an election was not taking place so that a democratic process would determine which of the 3 candidates should fill the vacancy. Norrian Rundle also a Teachers Alliance councillor pointed out that we had no information about any of the 3 candidates and yet we were being asked to blindly vote for one, the one the AEU officials had obviously anointed. Another councillor spoke to support one of the other candidates.

The majority of councillors dutifully put up their hands for the anointed one. Apparently the same scenario took place at primary council. I am really outraged at this lack of democracy. Secondly I believe that the logic of this implies that the AEU officials don't even trust their own councillors to vote the 'right' way, they have to pick out the suitable candidate. Thirdly, how dare they determine, without a fair process which candidate is more suitable or deserving enough to represent AEU members as a councillor. Obviously, they are worried about 'ordinary' members putting themselves forward because they may ask questions or even challenge the direction that these officials want.

Next year there will be elections which they cannot control. We need to take back control of our union to make it a democratic and strong union, one which is willing to get pay justice for all levels of teaching and finally address our working conditions, class sizes and end contract teaching.


Mary Merkenich AEU Councillor Teachers Alliance
View our web site at www.teachers-alliance.org

AEU Ratification Voting Meetings Details (AEU)

28 May 2008
Dear Sub-branch Representative
You should now have received in the mail your delegate entitlement for the series of Ratification
meetings across the State for the proposed Agreement (Certified Agreement plus Memorandum of
Understanding). If you have not received this mail by COB today, please contact John Cassidy at
the AEU on 1800 013 379.
The updated list of meetings and venues are:
Mon June 2 4.30pm Abbotsford AEU office, 112 Trenerry Cres
Mon June 2 5.00pm Warrnambool Warrnambool PS, Staff Rm, Jamieson St
Tues June 3 4.30pm Ballarat Ballarat Trades Hall, Camp St
Tues June 3 4.30pm Frankston Frankston Arts Centre, Young St
Wed June 4 4.30pm Deer Park Sunshine Golf Club, 475 Mount Derrimut Rd
Wed June 4 4.30pm Mulgrave Wellington SC, 91 Police Rd, Mulgrave
Wed June 4 5.00pm Leongatha Leongatha SC, Staff Centre, Nerrena Rd
Thurs June 5 4.45pm Bendigo Bendigo Trades Hall, 40 View St
Thurs June 5 5.00pm Bairnsdale Bairnsdale SC Jnr Campus, Boucher Hall
Thurs June 5 5.00pm Moe Lowanna SC, 72-96 Newark Ave, Newborough
Tues June 10 4.00pm Maryborough Maryborough Ed Centre, Balaclava Rd
Tues June 10 4.30pm Mildura Chaffey SC – Rm D1, 261-289 Deakin Ave
Tues June 10 4.30pm Geelong Geelong T&LC, 127 Myers St
Wed June 11 5.00pm Benalla Benalla College, Dunlop Campus, Faithfull St
Wed June 11 5.00pm Wodonga Wodonga PS, 41 Brockley St
Wed June 11 4.30pm Swan Hill Swan Hill PS – Staff Rm, 123 Gray St
Thurs June 12 5.00pm Shepparton McGuire College, Presentation Area Science &
Technology Centre, Wilmot Rd
Thurs June 12 4.30pm Eltham Eltham HS, Withers Way
Thurs June 12 5.30pm Horsham Horsham College, High Street
It is important that the outcome of the Ratification meetings reflect the membership view on the
totality of the Agreement.
Proxy voting
Under the AEU rules a delegate can carry one (1) proxy vote (but only one (1)).
Please be advised that should Proxies be appointed to attend ratification meetings they will need to
present evidence of their appointment in writing from the sub-branch member they are proxying for
and have with them the relevant voting card.
Voting cards need to be completed when attending ratification meetings including name and
signature. Voting cards will be required for the formal vote at the meeting and will be stamped as √
COMPLETED.
Registration
Delegates must register prior to the meeting and have their voting card(s) stamped prior to voting.
So please get to the meeting as early as you can.
Observers
Any observer must be an AEU member and must also register prior to the meeting. Under AEU
Rules, observers can participate in the meeting only with the leave of the meeting.
Any queries related to the above should be addressed to John Cassidy.
Yours sincerely
MARY BLUETT
Branch President

Schools agreement — Members to decide (AEU)

AEU e-Newsletter - Issue 26
In this issue:

Schools agreement — Members to decide

Next Monday will see the start of ratification meetings around the state as AEU delegates vote on the new Certified Agreement prior to any final union acceptance.
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/26/sch_agree.html

The risks of voting ‘no’

If members vote No at the ratification meetings, the result will be simple - there will be no agreement. Those proposing a No vote should say what they will do if they are successful.
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/26/risk.html

Extra agreement meeting set for Mulgrave

An additional agreement ratification meeting will be held at Wellington Secondary College on Wednesday June 4 at 4.30pm following requests from sub-branches in the area.
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/26/mulgrave.html

Schools agreement: A long list of benefits

It’s not just about the money. On top of $10,000 pay rises for teachers at the top of the scale and the most competitive starting salary in Australia, the proposed agreement contains other benefits.
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/26/benefits.html

TAFE campaign takes resolution to Minister Allan

The AEU Victorian Branch TAP Council is calling on the Brumby Government and the Minister for Skills, Jacinta Allan, to provide funding to ensure a salary outcome that will attract and retain qualified TAFE teachers across the state.
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/26/tafe.html

TAFE and AMES online survey — tell us about your working life

The AEU's online TAFE survey of TAFE teachers will be closing at close of business on Thursday.

http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/26/survey.html

MECA 2008 negotiations begin for early childhood

The AEU has met Kindergarten Parents Victoria (KPV) to begin negotiations for a new multi-employer certified agreement (MECA).
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/26/meca.html

Teachers call on government to fund professional pay

The AEU welcomes a Business Council of Australia proposal calling for
$4 billion to double the top rate of pay for teachers, but warns that increased funding for public schools is also needed.
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/26/prof_pay.html

Coming up: APHEDA fundraising dinner

This year’s Union Aid Abroad–APHEDA dinner will be held at the St Kilda Town Hall on Friday 18 July.
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/26/apheda.html

Women’s Power Forum 2008

“Women in the Arts” is the first event being held as part of this year’s Women’s Power Forum, which begins this Friday.

http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/26/women.html

Giveaway: Little Books of Big Ideas

Thanks to ABC Books we have two books in the Little Book of Big Ideas
series: Politics by Anne Perkins (leader writer for The Guardian
newspaper) and Business by Dr John Lipczynski (London School of Economics).
http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/26/giveaway.html

AEU e-Newsletter: http://aeu-vic.labor.net.au/newsletters/
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Agreement and Ratification Meeting Information (AEU)

Subject: Agreement and Ratification Meeting Information


Dear sub-branch rep,

We are writing to highlight the importance of the ratification process for the new agreement. We urge you to meet as a sub branch, support the proposed Agreement, which in the view of the negotiators is the best achievable outcome and attend the ratification meeting to register your sub branch’s vote.

There are 3 ratification meetings in your area (you can attend any of these):

Monday June 2nd Abbotsford 4:30pm (AEU office 112 Trenerry Cres, Abbotsford)
Tuesday June 3rd Frankston 4:30pm (Frankston Arts Centre, Young St, Frankston)
Wednesday June 4th Wellington 4:30pm (Wellington SC, 91 Police Rd, Mulgrave)

The sub branch delegate entitlement for voting will be 1 delegate for every 20 financial members (or part thereof) in the sub branch. Delegates are to be appointed by each sub branch. Each delegate will be entitled to vote once at one ratification meeting only. If you have any queries or would like to discuss anything to do with the ratification process or agreement, please contact your organiser or myself in the MSU.

Make sure you’re there to have your voice heard.

Mary Blew It (You Tube)

The new agreement is a poisoned apple

By David Ponsford ponsford.david.d@edumail.vic.gov.au
& Joseph Nadler nadler.joseph.m@edumail.vic.gov.au

Overseas teacher drive urged

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/overseas-teacher-drive-urged/2008/05/21/1211182895793.html
David Rood May 22, 2008
VICTORIA will need to immediately recruit teachers from interstate and overseas to avoid a shortage of high school teachers, according to an internal report to the Brumby Government.
Almost half of the state's government secondary schools had problems recruiting staff, the study found, with schools in Melbourne's urban growth fringes and Victoria's north and western regions the worst hit.
The average age of the teaching workforce is expected to continue to rise over the next five years, and a shortfall of almost 500 secondary-trained teachers a year is predicted.
The report on teacher supply, obtained by The Age, says this will require the recruitment of an extra 470 teachers each year "from interstate and overseas, previous years' graduates not working in the profession and from former teachers".
The ageing teacher population will result in increasing demand in areas such as special education, maths, science, physics, information technology and languages.
More than half of government teaching staff are older than 45, with the largest age group of teachers aged between 50 and 54.
Almost half of all state secondary schools reported difficulties filling vacancies, while half of combined primary and secondary schools had problems, up from 38.5% in 2006.
President of the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union Mary Bluett said the teacher supply report had consistently forecast the huge shortfall in secondary teachers.
"The depth of the teacher shortage in secondary schools is being masked by teachers having to teach in areas outside of their expertise — particularly in country schools," she said.
Ms Bluett questioned whether overseas recruitment was the best way to tackle the shortfall, saying Asian countries, Britain and New Zealand were already recruiting Victorian teachers.
"The solution doesn't lie with the expensive overseas recruitment of teachers, which is a throwback to the 1970s. We need a significant recruitment campaign to get back those who have left the profession or studied teaching but never went on to work as a teacher."
The Education Department does not run a formal recruitment program for interstate or overseas teachers.
The number of teaching service staff on contracts has increased over the past year to 18.5%, but that remains lower than the 1999 peak of just under one in five staff on contract.
The report also found
that since 1996 enrolments in government schools had risen by 3.8% and Catholic schools by 3.6%, compared with more than one-third at independent schools.

Demand mass meetings to reject Victorian teachers’ union sell-out!

By the Socialist Equality Party 20 May 2008
Use this version to print Send this link by email Email the author
Click here to download this article as a PDF leaflet
Victorian teachers should reject the sell-out agreement negotiated by the Australian Education Union (AEU) and the state Labor government of Premier John Brumby, and fight to mobilise teachers, parents, and the working class as a whole in defence of teachers’ wages and conditions and the public education system itself. As a first step, teachers should demand that mass meetings be convened where the details of the proposed agreement can be properly discussed, ordinary teachers can have their say, and a democratic vote be held.
Details of the proposed agreement—released after the AEU State Council voted on May 14 to accept the government’s terms—make clear that the union is attempting to ram through a new industrial contract that abandons all the demands raised by teachers in the course of their year-long struggle. Two strike-day mass meetings were held in November and February and a series of four-hour stoppages staged across the state in recent months to insist on a 30 percent pay rise over three years, maximum class size of 20 students, and a significant shift away from the use of contract teachers towards permanent positions. The AEU now expects teachers to accept an agreement that amounts to a real wage cut for many, exacerbates job insecurity and compounds the deepening crisis in the schools’ primary and secondary classrooms.
When news of the deal was first released on May 5—more than a week before teachers had any chance to read the full terms—AEU Victorian President Mary Bluett hailed it as a major victory. But there should be no misunderstanding. If ratified, this AEU-Labor government agreement will open the way for further severe attacks on public education.
* First-year and senior teachers’ salaries will rise by 11 and 15 percent respectively but this will be offset by “increases” in the next two years which will be well under the inflation rate. Many teachers on the middle pay rates will receive 4.9 percent for the first year, and just 2.71 for the next two—amounting to a real wage cut. Claims by Bluett that Victorian teachers will earn more than their NSW counterparts are false. Anyone between their first and thirteenth year will earn significantly less.
* Class sizes do not even rate a mention. This agreement adopts the same framework as the last one—it stipulates no maximum class size, simply an average figure for both primary and secondary schools. Maximum hours of face-to-face teaching are limited to 22.5 in primaries and 20 in secondaries—the same as currently—but with a new curriculum and reporting procedures and with the option of an additional after-school meeting hour—up from two to three—as well as parent nights, planning and correction time and report writing, creating an ever-increasing workload.
* On contract teachers: Like the 2004 enterprise agreement, this one accepts that “some fixed term or casual employment will continue to be necessary”. Already 20 percent of teachers have no job security; these generally young teachers are forced to constantly reapply for their positions.
* One particularly sinister measure is the AEU’s agreement with government plans to force out “disengaged” teachers and replace them with former contract teachers. This is being presented as a victory for contract teachers. The reality is that instead of fighting the growing casualisation of the teaching profession, the AEU will help enforce sackings and the destruction of permanent jobs. Among other consequences, this will result in an even worse climate of intimidation and fear. Teachers will be forced to toe the government line on education and teaching practices under threat of being labelled “underperforming” or “disengaged” and replaced by contract labour.
* A new category of employee, “teacher assistant”, has been introduced which is entirely unexplained. Its most likely aim is to bring in more contract labour. In Britain, the Labour government now employs “teacher assistants”, who lack experience and qualifications, to cover growing shortages of permanent teaching staff.
The fact that many teachers have never heard of these provisions simply underscores the need for mass meetings and a genuine discussion. But the AEU is proceeding in precisely the opposite manner, doing its utmost to spread confusion, conceal the real terms of the deal, and intimidate and bully members into accepting it. No mass email has been sent out, and it is difficult to find any details on the AEU’s website.
The first stage of ratification is to take place through a delegates’ vote involving no more than 5 percent of the union membership. The delegates’ meetings—of which only four are scheduled for the Melbourne metropolitan area—have been deliberately scheduled on school days in the afternoon in an attempt to prevent ordinary teachers from attending. The union hopes to ram through the agreement at these meetings, after which a ballot of all teachers will reportedly be held in each school in the last two weeks of June.
At every stage of the campaign, the union has fought to keep its membership isolated and in the dark and to stifle genuine discussion and debate. This situation can no longer be tolerated. Union branch meetings should be held at every school and resolutions passed rejecting the agreement and demanding that the union convene a mass meeting. According to the AEU constitution, a general meeting can be called if 10 percent of the membership petitions the leadership. Branches should circulate their resolutions and coordinate their activities throughout the state, and involve parents, principals, administrative education staff, as well as broader layers of the working class. Agitation for a mass meeting should mark the first step in taking the conduct of this campaign out of the hands of the AEU bureaucracy, electing rank and file committees and beginning a coordinated industrial and political struggle against the entire public education agenda of the state and federal Labor governments.
How has the current situation emerged?
Despite the AEU’s endorsement of the government’s offer, opposition and anger among the rank and file is growing. Several union branches have either rejected the deal or expressed their deep concern to the leadership. The Victorian Principals Association reportedly met last week and rejected the agreement out of hand.
But the fight to defend wages and conditions can only be sustained and developed to the extent that it is based on an entirely opposed political perspective to that of the unions and the Labor government: one that starts, not with accommodating to the demands of the financial markets and big business, but with the intellectual and creative needs of the state’s young people and the right of all teachers to a secure, well-paid job, with decent conditions in fully resourced schools and classrooms.
It is important to note that the AEU-Brumby agreement did not fall from the sky. Rather, it represents the culmination of a bipartisan 25-year assault on public education by Liberal and Labor governments alike.
Since1983, under the Hawke and Keating Labor governments, education “reform” has become a key component of the drive to make Australian capitalism “internationally competitive”. The various state governments have functioned as critical components of this agenda, promoting private schools at the expense of the public education system and implementing massive cuts to jobs, schools and resources. Throughout this process, the teacher unions have played a central role.
In the late 1980s, the Victorian unions collaborated with Joan Kirner’s state Labor government to introduce “District Provision”, which was used to “rationalise” state education. Under the banner of providing “greater curriculum choice”, dozens of schools were closed or amalgamated.
From 1992, Jeff Kennett’s Liberal government accelerated Kirner’s program through “Quality Provision,” which delivered a massive $350 million cut to the education budget, closed 350 schools and destroyed 9,000 teachers’ jobs. The union left individual schools to fight on their own, isolating teachers and parents who undertook school occupations and community actions. Kennett also introduced the “Schools of the Future” program, under which schools became autonomous, effectively ending centralised employment. To silence political opposition, Kennett introduced Teaching Service Order (TSO) 140 and used it mercilessly to victimise and sack teachers. The unions refused to mount any challenge, insisting that their members comply. And when contract teaching was introduced in 1993 the union failed to even call a members’ meeting! It simply proposed moving from a state to a federal award—to preserve its role as key negotiator against Kennett’s attempts to sideline it.
Labor was returned to office in 1999 after promising to reverse Kennett’s attacks on public education, end contract teaching, and lift gag provisions under TSO 140. Not one of these promises was kept. Instead, Kennett’s program, based on dividing schools and pitting them against each other, has been intensified, along with contract teaching.
Now Labor has moved to introduce so-called merit based pay. A 2001 industrial agreement signed with the AEU initiated the link between performance criteria and pay increments. This pro-market shift was further entrenched in the 2004 contract, when the AEU explicitly signed up to the government’s education “blueprint”, forcing schools to demonstrate continuous improvement in student test results in order to access continued funding. It will continue under this agreement.
A new perspective needed
The fight to defend their interests and public education as a whole brings Victorian teachers into conflict, not only with the AEU and the Brumby state government, but also with the federal Labor government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Rudd won office last November by appealing to the Hawke-Keating “legacy” and pledging to launch a new wave of free market economic reforms. Under conditions of an escalating crisis in the world economy and growing fears of a 1930s-style global recession, he has already made crystal clear that his government will ruthlessly place the full burden of the economic crisis on the backs of working people and suppress any struggles over wages and conditions.
Federal Labor’s so-called “education revolution” is aimed at pushing up productivity. Every aspect of public education, from pre-school to university, is to be subordinated to the labour requirements of business. The Victorian government’s “Blueprint” will be complemented by the Rudd government’s national student tests, which will be used to establish league tables—yet another measure aimed at slashing public school funding.
Teachers cannot advance their interests on the basis of a trade unionist perspective. The viability of the old trade unionist and Laborist strategy of securing concessions for the working class from the national ruling elite has been forever shattered by the ever closer integration of the world economy. An immense social reversion is underway, with governments in every advanced capitalist country moving to slash workers’ wages and conditions, tear up existing social security and welfare provisions, and extend the operations of the profit system to every sphere of social and economic life.
Workers require a new and independent political orientation, one which aims to harness the enormous productive capacities and technological resources of the world economy in the interests of the social needs of the vast majority, rather than the narrow interests of the wealthy few. On public education for example, billions of dollars should be spent to ensure a free, universally accessible, quality school system—including child care and kindergartens for all—which gives all children the opportunity to fully develop their talents, capacities, and interests. Such a program, however, is fundamentally incompatible with an education system subordinated to the market and the dictates of big business. Nothing less than the revolutionary reorganisation of society is needed. The prerequisite for this transformation is for teachers—and all workers—to make a decisive break with the Labor Party and the trade unions and to turn to the development of a new party which genuinely represents their interests.
The Socialist Equality Party is that party. We urge all teachers, parents and students to study our program and history, to contact the World Socialist Web Site to discuss these critical issues and to advance the struggle for a broad campaign in the working class against the AEU sell-out agreement.
See Also:Australia: Teachers’ union moves to shut down industrial campaign[10 May 2008]Australia: Victorian teachers face fight with Labor governments over pay and conditions[13 February 2008]Australia: Victorian teachers’ union blocks discussion on strategy to oppose government attacks[26 February 2008]Socialist candidate warns Victorian teachers of union betrayal[22 November 2007]The AEU and the Victorian teachers’ wage rise campaign[19 November 2007]

3.25 is a JOKE, Ms. Bluett! (YouTube)

Vote No to the EBA (YouTube)

The new Agreement - Your Comments

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Productivity? Pah

http://www.theage.com.au/news/letters/higher-bills-small-price-to-pay-for-the-environment/2008/05/08/1210131164681.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

THANK you to all those who negotiated hard with Minister Pike on my behalf for a better deal but despite the hearty public congratulations all round, I'm not exactly clear what it is I've gained besides a minuscule pay rise. While the AEU rode high on the wave of members' discontent, they've missed the point — teachers feel strongly about being overworked as well as underpaid.
For a pittance more, I'm now condemned to a longer day and no decrease in class size. Parents have also been sold out as, more than ever, schools will simply be glorified child-minding centres. That both sides would consider working more hours "productivity" defies belief.
Evdokia Mantzaris, Clayton