Members of the Australian Education Union (AEU) employed in Victorian public schools will stop work for 24 hours on February 14 as part of their campaign for a new enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) with the state government.
Last November, 10,000 Victorian teachers marched through Melbourne demanding smaller class sizes and a pay increase of 10% per year over the next three years. However, Labor Premier John Brumby has refused to budge from his offer of a 3.25% annual pay rise.
AEU Victorian branch president Mary Bluett told news media reporters on January 28 that the government "had our claim since December 2006, and we were negotiating virtually every week from March right through until December of last year. Victorian teachers haven't had a pay increase since October 2006 and we're the lowest paid in the nation. The gap between us and New South Wales is now, for an experienced teacher, 15% — just under $10,000 a year."
This pay gap has led to unfilled positions in schools near the NSW border. It is almost impossible to find replacement teachers as they can earn up to $80 per day more in NSW. Furthermore, wealthy private schools have been poaching teachers from the public school system by offering higher pay.
Bluett noted that a recent survey of 300 Victorian public schools found more than a quarter suffered teacher vacancies, and at 40% of high schools at least one teacher had to teach outside their area of expertise.
The Victorian government spends the least per student of any state or territory government in Australia. As Melbourne Age economics writer Kenneth Davidson noted in March 2004: "If the Victorian government was spending the same amount of money on each child in government schools as the NSW government is spending on its students in government schools, Victoria would be spending about $500 million extra on its state schools — and most of that money would be spent on teacher salaries and smaller class sizes."
The AEU wants to see class sizes reduced to 20 students across all years and a reduction in the number of teachers on short-term employment contacts. Currently, nearly half of Victoria's public schools still have classes of more than 25 students and one in five teachers are currently on short-term contracts. AEU members in Victoria want to see an increase in the budgets each public school is allocated by the education department.
While AEU members want a decent pay rise, they are also concerned over work conditions. They are not prepared to trade off working conditions for their pay rise.
Past EBAs have progressively eroded teacher working conditions and the budgets allocated to schools.
AEU members agreed to the last two EBAs mainly because the union leadership told them that these deals were the best that could be got. This time, though, the teachers' resolve is much stronger and it will be more difficult for the union leadership to sell an agreement that does not address teachers' concerns.
Another reason why previous agreements have been voted for by most AEU members is the ratification process involves after-school meetings that are often poorly attended. This time Teachers Alliance, an opposition group within the union, is calling for a delegates' meeting during work time to ratify any agreement. Teachers Alliance is also urging union members to hold out until they get an offer that guarantees real improvements in wages, working conditions and funding to public schools.
[Norrian Rundle and Mary Merkenich are members of the AEU.]