By Maurice Sibelle
BRISBANE — Over ten thousand teachers rallied across Queensland on August 5 to protest the cutbacks to the education budget by the state government. The 4000-strong meeting at Brisbane's Festival Hall, plus some 50 other meetings across the state, were the largest turn-out of teachers in Queensland Teachers Union history.
The QTU has a membership of 31,000 teachers and covers both primary and secondary schools. QTU president Mary Kelly claimed that 95% of teachers complied with the strike action while the education department claimed that only 2% of schools were unaffected by the strike action.
The education cuts will increase class sizes, reduce support and management staff for teachers, increased the length of time teachers are forced to spend in remote areas and force teachers to do their in-service training in their own time.
The Brisbane meeting was joined by hundreds of student teachers who marched to the meeting in solidarity. The student teachers fear that the cuts to education will further weaken their ability to get a job at the end of their degree. In June of this year there were 10,764 people seeking employment with the department of Education. Kelly told the Brisbane meeting that during discussions with the department she was told that 581 positions would be lost saving $26 million. The package of cuts is expected to save the government $34.6 million.
Kelly received a standing ovation after she took up each point of the governments campaign against the teachers. She explained that Queensland education expenditure per capita was still last among the Australian states, that expenditure was $137 million behind the national average and that Queensland raises $730 million less in general revenue compared with the average of the Australian states.
She explained that teachers had received no increase in salary since August 1991. Kelly praised the public sector alliance unions and congratulated the railworkers, nurses and state public sector workers who had won a review of the cutbacks of their areas. She then outlined the campaign: "Our campaign is not a strike, our campaign is a very intense lobbying and public education campaign to force the government to change its mind. This strike is part of that and a powerful part. But if we'd done this and this alone it would not have been very useful. If we'd have done the lobbying and the lobbying alone it would have not been very useful. It is their interaction, the way they feed of each other, the way they enforce each other, is where the power comes... There is a full month before the budget and we don't intend this be our last hooray."
The meeting then voted unaminously in favor of six motions condemning the cuts, calling for consultation, demanding more jobs, continuing the alliance of public sector unions, for a lobbying campaign and for industrial action. There will be 48-hour stoppages in selected centres. The QTU executive was authorised to impose work bans if the the cuts.
Other speakers at the rally included Cherie Rutherford, Queensland University of Technology Student Union president; Nancy Coll, vice- president of the Queensland Council of Parents and Citizens Association (QCPCA) and John Thompson, represenying the ACTU Queensland branch.
In response to attempts by the education minister Pat Comben to divide teachers from their leaders Shane Groth, QTU vice-president, told Green Left Weekly, "We are carrying out the wishes of the membership. That was one of the themes of the meetings on August 5. Country teachers won't be split from city teachers and the leadership won't be split from the membership."
Groth reported that the response from other centres was just as enthusiastic. In a secret ballot to hold the one day strike 80% of QTU members cast a ballot and 70% of those voted to go on strike on August 5.
"The strategy of the government has been to come to interim accomodations with the other alliance unions in order to leave the QTU out on a limb. The attendance and the strong letters of support we got from the alliance unions is an indication that it won't succeed", he continued. "We haven't been offered a process. In the other cases the government has withdrawn the cuts pending a review. Comben has offered us co-mamagement of the cuts. We're interested in co-mamagement but not if the cuts remain on the table."
Groth went on to explain that the campaign was challenging the "economic rationalist" philosophy of the Labor government. "They can't deliver our demands if they continue their policy. They have to broaden their revenue base to achieve the social justice that they talk about. It's not just the public sector, health, education and rail but also the welfare sector that is underfunded. They believe that they can engender enough revenue without changing the tax base through increased economic activity. It's proven that that's not working. They've got 5% growth rate which is double the national average yet still per head they are collecting $141 million less than what the nationals collected. Their whole philosophy is wrong. What they have to look at is what we call socially responsible taxes such as a land tax and inheritance tax."
Later, on the evening of August 5, members of the QCPCA met to consider action against the cuts. The meeting voted to call a "parent's strike" if the cuts were not withdrawn. The "strike" would involve parents keeping their children at home.
Despite attempts by the minister to portray the strike as damaging to students and a "hicup in the administration of education", Kelly was confident of support for the strike. "The members of our union feel betrayed and angry", she told Green Left Weekly. "There were many aditional motions sugesting work bans and expressing no confidence in the minister at the meetings around the state", she said. "We are aintain the campaign in the lead up to the September 2 budget."