The old waiting game

Today’s West Australian newspaper reports on the decision by the Industrial Relations Commission yesterday. According to the newspaper the State School Teachers Union is still considering strike action in order to apply pressure to the Department of Education since, at least in the opinion of Anne Gisborne the SSTUWA president, an offer can still be made during the arbitration process.

The arbitration process, it is reported, could take up to 12 months. The union believes that in making the submission to the Industrial Relations Commission the Department is taking the “longest pathway the can”. Strangely Mark McGowan, the Minister for Education, believes that this is the “quickest way to resolve this issue”. Somebody has to be wrong here.

It seems to me that the Department of Education is, indeed, trying to make the process as protracted as possible, and who can blame them. Every fortnight that goes by without a pay increase means money the Department doesn’t have to spend.

The Minister continues: “we’re still pushing to make sure WA teachers are the best paid of all the states”. What, of course, he doesn’t add is that they would be the best paid at the end of the three-year agreement compared to teachers in other states at their current pay levels before their pay negotiations. So that in three years the situation would be the same as at the moment.

One thing that has become more than apparent about the Minister of Education and the government that is a member of is the total lack of compassion that they have shown for their work force. In an era when food and petrol prices are rising astronomically and where the cost of housing is ridiculously inflated the Department is paying its teachers so little that they are struggling to make ends meet, let alone live comfortably.

The Department seems to have its head stuck in the sand too with regard to looming teacher shortage. Instead of acting on the recommendations from the (still secret) Twomey report, from the Business Council and other experts in education to increase teacher recruitment and retention by addressing the most pressing concern of salaries the Department, which must realise that the light at the end of the tunnel is the train, faffs about with ineffectual strategies such as recruiting from overseas and other states, creating super schools and pulling staff out of its district and central offices.

The latest in these ridiculous strategies is also reported in today’s West Australian. The Minister is suggesting that the one-year Post Graduate Diploma in Education should be turned into a three month intensive course. He believes that people such as “mining engineers, geologists and physiotherapists…who wanted a job that fitted around their children” would be interested.

The best bit is that when interviewed he “conceded that many people on high incomes would be attracted by a teacher’s wage”. He actually admitted that a teacher’s salary was not attractive. He goes on to say that people who are already financially comfortable will make the move. What about the current teachers who are financially uncomfortable? He is completed misguided in his notion. Why would a mining engineer give up his $160k per annum income to earn $50k standing in front of 30 or so disinterested children? What Mr. McGowan should be more concerned with is teachers leaving the profession to go and work on the mines.

This, of course, leaves aside the issue of how qualified to teach these people will be. The Bachelor of Education is a four-year degree. This is how long it takes to become a teacher. The current Diploma is a one-year course and the graduates of this course are often not competent as teachers with many resources being used to prop them up in their first years of teaching. Just because someone has a degree doesn’t mean that they are able to perform the highly complex task of teaching.

The SSTUWA does itself and teachers no favours either. Instead of focussing on what is important to teachers, i.e. salary, they blur the issue with class sizes and Duties Other Than Teaching (DOTT), both of which are completely impractical in a time where there is a teacher shortage. Many of the high-ups in the Union seem as dispassionate with regard to the people they represent as their adversaries in the Department. Collective bargaining is all well and good but when the body bargaining on the behalf of workers seems as ineffective as the SSTUWA then it seems that Individual Workplace Agreements are a better bet.

My prediction is that this issue will be resolved during the election campaign by state government. Until then the government will keep its hands in its pockets until suddenly making an offer that will bring the 30,000 teachers in this state back to the fold.