Workers' Liberty

'the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class'  

Workers' Liberty Australia  

Queensland teachers strike wins more jobs

by Melissa White

Last month it had appeared as if the Queensland Teachers Union, by virtue of the stronger bargaining position it had worked towards with the 24-hour strike on 14 June, had managed to force the Qld Beattie Labor Government and the Department of Education to start to address its concerns. In fact, after the strike the Department had immediately offered to employ another 800 teachers in response to concerns that teachers have with pitifully low levels of staffing. This had seemed to mark the beginning of a shift in the campaign in which the QTU might have been able to force similar concessions across the range of concerns, not only including reductions in class sizes (by employing more teachers), but more funding for special programs to help with the management of disruptive behaviour by students, more funding for students with special needs, the upgrading of information technology equipment in schools and, not least, the outstanding issue of the pay rise well overdue to teachers. Since then, the QTU Executive decided to refer the revised offer to a ballot of the members along with a recommendation to the membership to accept the offer. On July 22, 85% of the membership voted in favour of accepting the offer. Whilst it is pleasing to see that the QTU had forced a small concession out of Beattie that will make for a minor improvement in the working life of teachers, it is a great shame that the QTU would find it satisfactory to sign off on an EB agreement which locks teachers into a continued poor working conditions for the next 3 years. Whilst this recommendation may, in fact, represent the real balance of class forces as reflected in the willingness or reluctance of the members to take ongoing industrial action and the particular belligerence of this 'Labor' government, it contradicts other available options which could have been used to secure a better outcome; namely, a wider public sector campaign. 800 new jobsÉ What does the final settlement deliver? In addition to the 800 new teachers to be phased in by 2003, representing a paltry, but real, increase of 2.5% to alleviate the high student: staff ratios (strangely, this was accompanied by a promise which had been sought by the Union in which the Department was to "open its books" so the QTU could actually verify that the extra teachers were going to be employed), the QTU has managed to secure a 5% 'catch up' pay rise for small school principals, deputy principals and heads of department. These are both welcome, albeit minute, improvements, and the latter is simply a matter of 'holding the line' for what teachers already had before anyway. ÉWhat about pay? But the EB settlement reached contains no final agreement on pay! And pay was a central issue of the dispute. The Department had offered 3%, the QTU had calculated 8% as its claim, and it seemed that never the twain would meet, since the Beattie government had been 'crying poor'. The Beattie Government has only offered the same 3% rise across the board to all of its public servants, and the QTU has not been prepared to broaden the campaign across the whole public sector. That would have been the only way to secure the industrial resources needed to be brought to bear upon Beattie and the Department sufficient to win the campaign. The best plausible outcome for teachers is that the IRC makes a ruling on the precedent of the New South Wales teachers (17% spread over four years). It is also noteworthy that the QTU had earlier used the Commission to determine that whatever the final pay rise is, it will be backdated to 10 April 2000 in order to compensate teachers for the contractual 'no-mans land' they have been inhabiting since the former EB agreement expired on 31 March. And this was not achieved at the expense of other gains (the introduction of 800 new teachers) as it had been initially when the Department had wanted to make a payment to teachers to cover for the lapsed period in its 'interim offer' to stall the 24-hour strike. A gain, to have lost no more that 10 days of coverage? A 'victory' also determined by the precedent for expired EB agreements to dovetail with new EB agreements, but which the bosses are in no great hurry to settle whilst they make savings in wages by using the old rates of pay during the period when workers' agreements have expired. Presumably, the IRC being what it is, this sort of pressure will alter the current precedent and institutionalize the delays associated with EB, and make new rates of payment contingent upon settlement. Nor does this settlement satisfy the other points of the teachers' claims: in relation to the money needed for the introduction of behaviour management programs, 'alternative schooling sites' are being established. In relation to extra money to improve the information technology equipment in schools, an additional $5 million for the 'consideration' of leasing arrangements in next year's budget cycle. In relation to the requirement for extra money for students with special needs, a 'joint taskforce' on how to allocate the 800 teachers who were sought for the alleviation of classroom sizes, not at the expense of more special needs teachers for special needs students! Broader campaign needed The QTU Executive rightly pointed out in its recommendation to the membership to accept the offer that this is the first time in a round of EB (and this is only the third), that the Union has forced an increase in resources. This is true, but the action it engaged in during the last round of EB was defensive industrial activity only, designed primarily to thwart the introduction of the "Leading schools" scheme (budget devolution to the school, instead of the Department, level, inevitably resulting in the closure of economically 'unviable' schools). This is certainly not to undermine the effectiveness of the industrial activity which could not have secured the extra 800 teachers otherwise, but it is to point out that had the QTU in the immediate short-term of its campaign joined forces with, say, the AWU and the QNU, covering non-medical hospital staff and nurses respectively, and who are also having disputes with the Beattie Government in EB proceedings, and in the medium-term, prepared itself to organize as one of the forces in a campaign across the whole of the Qld public service, a better outcome could certainly have been achieved for Qld teachers.

The race to the bottom - within Australia too.

by Janet Burstall

The competition doesn't always come from overseas. The Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union (LHMU) agreed to a deal for cuts in conditions to ensure the survival of Belmont Night Patrol in Newcastle. Another local security business paying award rates went broke under the competition, according to LHMU officer Nick Vance. (Australian Financial Review, 17 July 2000)

Campaign 2000:
Campaign what?

"After all the build up they couldn't believe they got off so lightly" reported the Financial Review, when the expected co-ordinated industrial action in support of Campaign 2000 in did not emerge. There were 2 basic aims for the campaign: Stop productivity trade-offs for wage rises, and ensure a collection of broadly similar enterprise agreements, so that under a future Labor government there would be less basis for opposing an end to EBAs on the grounds of vastly disparate employment conditions. (AFR 18 July 2000) Perhaps there had been larger intentions, which were revised when the Democrats indicated that they would reconsider granting support to Reith's recently withdrawn Third Wave IR laws against pattern-bargaining. The AMWU website explains nothing about the progress of Campaign 2000, since Doug Cameron's report to the ACTU Executive in February. But there is almost enough about 'Fair Trade' to distract anyone from noticing.