Invest in preschool teachers – it’s ABC

A mass meeting and rally of up to 1,000 kindergarten teachers and educators took place in Melbourne on Wednesday 22 October. Preschool staff – members of the Australian Education Union – took action as part of a 24-hour stop-work. Their aim is to achieve pay equality with their colleagues in primary schools.

The action came after two years of fruitless negotiations between the union and employer associations, which include the Municipal Association of Victoria as well as representatives of private and community-run preschools.

Despite wages for kindergarten teachers (who graduate with the same qualifications as primary school teachers) falling up to 9 percent behind primary teachers in some cases, employers have so far refused anything more than a 2.25 percent wage rise. This offer was resoundingly rejected by the mass meeting.

It’s never just about pay, though – especially for teachers. The meeting heard that, with ever increasing demands and regulations, a teacher employed for the usual 28 hours a week was doing an average of 14 hours a week of unpaid work. That’s 20 weeks of work that teachers are donating to their bosses, every year. And the situation for educators (kinder staff who have a diploma or Certificate III instead of a degree) is even worse.

When pay and conditions fall so far behind, it’s no wonder that kinder teachers are in short supply. If you can earn just that little bit more teaching prep than teaching kinder, it’s easy to see that new graduates face a difficult choice.

The future of the teachers’ pay campaign is uncertain. Although a motion condemning the Napthine government and the employers and foreshadowing a continuing campaign was passed unanimously, no date for any further industrial action was proposed by the AEU, and no questions were raised from the floor about the direction of the campaign.

Nevertheless, there is clearly a mood for action among preschool teachers. The ballot to take protected action – the first strike action from preschool teachers in 10 years – was voted for by 93 percent of union members. The union reported that, in the month leading up to the strike, 150 new members had been recruited. And the hundreds who marched, chanting loudly, from the mass meeting to state parliament were joined in spirit by members in Mildura, who had succeeded in shutting every non-council kinder in that town, and by council-run preschool members in Warrnambool, who gathered for an after-work rally outside the premier’s electoral office.

Neta, a teacher from Merrigum Kindergarten near Shepparton, told Red Flag: “We’ve had enough. The Napthine government [and the employer groups] have not listened to us. We want them to invest in our preschools, to look after the teachers, look after the conditions, and they’re just not doing that.”

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For more information about the campaign, visit www.protectourpreschools.com.au