Victorian teachers set to strike

May 30, 2001
Issue 

BY SUE BULL

GEELONG — Victorian teachers are set to strike on June 19, if the Premier Steve Bracks' Labor government does not reconsider its allocation of funds for education.

The Australian Education Union has called on pre-school, primary, secondary and TAFE teachers to unite for the first time ever in a rally on June 19 to protest the government's refusal to hold any discussions with the AEU over education funding. Bracks has even had screaming matches with parents on talk-back radio when they have criticised the government's puny increases in education spending.

The state education minister, Mary Delahunty, maintains that the government's 2000-2001 budget provides for the hiring of an extra 2000 teachers and invests $2 billion more in the state's education system. However, AEU president Mary Bluett claims that the budget does not address the urgent needs of a system brutally dismantled by the previous Coalition state government.

The AEU wants pay parity for pre-school teachers who earn $10,000 less a year than primary teachers with the same qualifications. It wants welfare support for primary schools, reduced class sizes, restoration of funding for TAFE programs and salary justice for disability support workers.

The AEU claims that Victorian spending on pre-schools, secondary schools and TAFE is the lowest in the nation and that the ALP government had promised to turn this around. "The first Bracks government budget", Bluett said, "made a positive start but it was moderate. Its second budget can only be described as a cruel hoax. While still claiming public education as its number one priority, the state budget fails to deliver big time."

Even Roslyn Guy, education editor for the Melbourne Age, admits that the budget hasn't delivered much of substance for most schools. For example, $16.6 million will be given to three — out of a total of 1625 — schools for new high-tech centres. Even where there have been improvements, as with the reduction in class sizes in prep to grade 2, this has caused large blowouts in grade 3 and above. "Teachers are right to feel betrayed", said Guy.

Certainly within schools themselves most teachers are only just getting by. Over the last 10 years workloads have ballooned. In secondary schools many teachers are teaching three or four more periods a week than they did under the previous Labor government. Most primary school teachers are still dealing with class sizes that hover near the 30 mark.

Feelings of suppressed anger compete with disillusioned resignation. Many talk regularly about early retirement. Yet they remain committed to their students and work increasing amounts of unpaid overtime in dilapidated buildings, in the hope that they can pull their students through. Many will be looking to this AEU-initiated campaign to breathe some fresh air into fighting for public education because it's clear that no one else is going to do it for us.

[Sue Bull is a member of the AEU and the Democratic Socialist Party.]

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