Why we're voting No
What the heck is happening with bargaining?
Well, week one has been a wild ride for AEU members!
We’re currently left with a decision to vote for or against a new proposed agreement from the government.
How we got here
We’re offended by the email from the Department and their gambit to circumvent the union to try to force through a deal by getting non-members to apply pressure to us. This is a ridiculously anti-union move that is hardly bargaining in good faith.
We’re also frustrated by our Branch Council for letting the government get away with this and giving us such a tight time-frame to respond — especially after voting on the last offer took a month and several regional briefings! We’ve been sent a text late on Friday night giving us a day and a half to vote with very little time for reps to call a sub-branch meeting.
The Branch Council should be an important representative body for the membership. It should have voted down the offer given that we have already planned a strike and 87.9% of members have said that they would support such an action. The offer is also not that different to what came before, especially considering the recent survey proved that members’ most significant issue was a reduction in class sizes.
By pushing the decision onto members, we’re left in a position of not knowing whether we’re striking on Thursday and won’t find out until Tuesday night at the earliest. This is not leadership, or representing the desire of members, it is a failure to act.
Collective action
All of that put aside for the moment, we need to acknowledge that this vote is hugely significant. It will dictate our working conditions for the next four years.
So despite the short turnaround time, sub-branch reps should absolutely do their best to organise a meeting on Monday to discuss the pros and cons of this offer with their colleagues.
While it is an individual vote, it is best to discuss the offer collectively. This is a key part of bargaining together as a union.
How we won improvements
It is hard to avoid noticing how effective (the threat of) strike action has been throughout this campaign. Within 48 hours of announcing another 24 hour strike, the government presented us with an offer that contained several improvements to their previous offer.
This demonstrates just how terrified they are of our strike on Thursday. We have them on the back foot. They are clearly desperate to wrap this dispute up as soon as possible.
Throughout our whole campaign, this has been the pattern. Every single time that we have taken industrial action, or threatened industrial action, the government has moved closer to our demands.
By voting No to the current offer, we are positioning ourselves in the strongest possible place to increase our leverage against the government. By showing our industrial strength next week we send a decisive message to the government that we are serious about achieving what we deserve, what our students deserve and what public education deserves.
We are at our strongest, most organised position that we have been in well over a decade. We have momentum behind us and the survey demonstrated that close to 90% of teachers are ready to strike again. We should use our power to push while we can.
The proposed offer
Our threat of industrial action next Thursday has won us genuine and meaningful improvements:
ES staff will have pay rises built into the base salary — significantly improving our position by the end of the agreement.
Teachers have had meeting times cut in half, giving us more control of our time to direct our work ourselves.
Top of the range teachers have been given a 1% annual bonus as an allowance, bringing us closer to equal pay rises across all sections of the workforce.
Many members are happy with these improvements, but we know that meaningful changes are within our grasp if we vote No and continue with our planned industrial action on Thursday.
We are so close
This has been a long and hard fought campaign. We are tired and want to get on with our jobs and to pocket the pay rise that we have fought so hard for.
Winning seriously transformational change in the public education system can’t be achieved in a single agreement. We know that.
Although transformational change needs to be the goal in the long-term, we will need to fight and build up our organisation over a number of agreements, not just one. But we also need to win as much as we can in each round of bargaining in order to get there.
So we should be frank in our assessment of the situation we face. What could we reasonably achieve with the strength we have and the time we have before the election?
The results of the survey demonstrates that there is absolutely fuel left in the tank, with the vast majority of us prepared to strike again. We should use this.
We therefore support going ahead with the Thursday strike and consolidating this current offer with:
A flat pay rise of 32% for all sections of the workforce (i.e. including ES and top of the range teachers), not just graduate teachers.
Staged class size reductions, set to begin during the second half of the agreement, coupled with the corresponding funding to build more classrooms.
It is fair to say that reducing class sizes immediately would be unreasonable, with the current teacher shortage and limitations on how many classrooms actually exist in schools.
But that doesn’t mean that we can’t build a long-term commitment to reduce class sizes into the agreement.
This gives time for schools to attract teachers back to the profession, now that we have already locked in significant pay rises and begun to improve conditions with a reduction in meeting time.
It also gives time for schools to build additional buildings to make room for additional classrooms.
These claims are not out of our reach with the strike-willingness that already exists amongst the membership and would allow us to begin to address the crisis in our schools, without leaving any sections of the workforce behind.
What it means to be union
A strike next week will reignite that fire in our bellies. The fire we felt so strongly on 24 March. Members voted overwhelmingly in support of further strike action because we know how powerful it is and we can’t let this momentum peter out when we are so close to achieving more.
Whatever the outcome, we are also concerned that this rushed vote will leave people disappointed. We therefore need to mitigate any splintering of the union by staying united and staying union strong.
Keep talking to your colleagues, discuss your concerns, and try to build unity within your sub-branch on Monday and Tuesday as much as you can.
If the outcome is a No vote, we must show our strength by striking next week and turning out to the city in massive numbers. We must consolidate our power around the strike and demonstrate our unity and resolve to fight for more.
If the outcome is a Yes vote, we need to keep up the momentum we have built in this campaign. We need to ensure members stay active and engaged to enforce the wins we have achieved in the agreement. By keeping the fire going, we can continue building rank and file power and organisation to improve on this agreement with even bigger wins next time.
In the long-term, to fix the issues in our union, we need to start by reforming the Branch Council. We can’t have Council simply be a rubber stamp for the officials whenever they try to hold back the membership’s desire to fight. We need active members of the union, who are frustrated with how things are currently running, to run for Council in 2027.
Let’s keep talking to our colleagues, and keep organising for long-term transformational change in our union and our industry, regardless of the outcome of this vote.