TAFE vice-president Gillian Robertson’s speech to the August 20 stopwork rally

Action
20 August 2008

AEU TAFE vice-president Gillian Robertson’s speech to the TAFE stopwork rally at The Athenaeum, August 20:

You don't need me to tell you that in TAFE we have been battered from every side possible, pushed from pillar to post and we know there are times when we have to stand up for what is just and right. Your attendance here is going to resonate through the halls of state parliament today, tomorrow and every day until we win a fair and reasonable deal for teachers - and protection for the public provision of TAFE education.

We are here in these great numbers to show the Victorian Government and the Directors of our TAFE Institutes that we have had enough of their refusal to negotiate our log of claims which they have now had in front of them for 12 months. The arrogance and contempt that have been shown to you, the lack of respect for what you do and the patronising lip service to the need to pay you more while blocking all negotiations in the pursuit of individual contracts have overflowed into TAFE teachers taking this unprecedented stopwork action - the first in 13 years.

We have members here from all parts of the state. We have the support of their families. We have non-members and many other supporters. We have the trade union movement. We have thousands of employers and through our advertising we are rapidly gaining the support of the entire community.

It is not hard to work out why.

• If you want to attract and retain the best teachers, you do not pay them less than third and fourth year apprentices or $13,000 less that school teachers
• You do not launch an assault on our collective agreement and you do not put the right to force people onto individual contracts as a pre-condition to any negotiations with the AEU
• With the right to the sort of 'award flexibility' that directors want, there would be little point in having a collective agreement as one by one they would whittle away your 42 weeks attendance, 800 hours maximum teaching, 21 hours per week face to face teaching, 8 hours non-attendance time and send class sizes through the roof.

In no time, directors would have more work being done by fewer teachers. Contracts and sessional work would dry up and the grossly overworked and under-supported permanent teachers would have even more to do.

For too long the directors have pursued their own self-interest and failed to look after the genuine needs of the TAFE workforce, the TAFE system and their students.

• They allow themselves to be the buffer between what is rapidly appearing to be the anti-TAFE state government and you
• They throw their hands up in impotence and say there is nothing they can do to improve the 3.25% offer
• They refuse to go with the AEU in a joint approach to government to get better funding for you and our students
• They refuse to join us in telling the community how poorly the TAFE system is funded, and now we hear they are scrambling to accommodate the "Skills Reform" of the Brumby Government rather than oppose what is the greatest threat to public provision of skills training and further education this country has ever seen.

They have had their opportunities to lead their institutes, to protect their staff and to fight these skills reforms and they have failed. Their response to the skills crisis is to declare war on their teachers and your union and to try and con us all that getting more work out of you individually is the solution.

Well it isn't and we are here to tell them so.

We are here to tell the Directors and the Brumby Government to stop all this and start governing. This is not a game.

We all know that negotiations must be held

We all know that 3.25% is an absurd offer well under the inflation rate

We all know that productivity offsets don't exist in cash-starved TAFE

We all know that 60% casual employment is unacceptable

We all know that a Collective Agreement is non-negotiable

We all know that Minister Allan must break this deadlock.

If the Directors and government won't agree to the above, then they need to know we are not going away. Our resolve will only intensify. When the AEU runs a campaign it means it. We are strong and will now begin to target the state MPs who refuse to come out and support you, their constituents. If they want to ignore you and the financial plight they are putting you in, it will be at their peril.

Teachers are not numbers on spreadsheets. We are real people. The Minister for Skills sits on a 4% majority. She will need all those skills to stay as Member for Bendigo East if she refuses to overrule these directors and to allow this impasse to continue.

We will march to Parliament at the end of this meeting. We will send a message to the Government and the Directors that they won't forget.

You are the most under paid teachers in the most underfunded state and WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH.

The pay rip-off, the job insecurity, the overwork and the leap to the privatisation of TAFE are not on. This union and its members will fight as long, as hard and as publicly as it needs, to see a TAFE system funded properly, a workforce paid decently with fair and reasonable conditions and a training system that will meet the real needs of our students.

We are in a crisis. Your professionalism as shown by your being here today is in direct contrast to the acquiescence of the Directors and the Victorian TAFE Association. Be proud and unapologetic for your actions in standing up for yourselves, the great publicly funded TAFE system and the thousands of Victorians, both young and old who value the system we are fighting to protect.

Quality, affordable technical and further education taught by well trained and fairly paid, qualified teachers is all we are seeking. You are with us, the community is behind us and we will win.