Meeting with the Minister

Each week, AEU (SA) Branch President Correna Haythorpe will post her thoughts and experiences around the EB to this blog. Her first post comes directly after a meeting with new IR Minister Paul Caica...

This afternoon, Marcus, Anne, Jack and I met with the new Industrial Relations Minister Paul Caica, to brief him on EB progress or lack thereof. We took the opportunity to raise our concerns about outstanding matters including:

• the lack of relevant schooling experience on the DECS negotiating team (get someone with some experience on the team!)
• the tardiness in providing the AEU with detailed information when requested
• the impact of the proposed Student Centred Resource Funding Model (SCRFM) and what this will mean for our schools
• the importance of maintaining the industrial protections enshrined in our agreement
• national salary movements and where our members expect to be positioned on the salary scale (certainly not on or near
the bottom!)
• our willingness to shift in discussions on matters such as paid maternity leave
• the absolute necessity that the government bring the EB debate back to our pay and conditions and not use our EB to
defund our schools

The discussion was constructive, however, Minister Caica did not offer any commitment to provide us with a new offer in the near future. The State Government has a very small window of opportunity if they wish to avert next week’s rolling stoppages.

The AEU needs to see a commitment from Minister Caica to: bargain in good faith; remove the Student Centred Resource Funding Model from their offer; and to start talking to us about salaries in the range of $75,000 for Step 8 (the new national benchmark), before any consideration could be given to calling off the stoppages. Anything less is just insulting to the education workforce in SA. We made this very clear to Minister Caica and now the ball is in his government’s court. So, now we will wait and see what the next few days bring to the EB debate.

In solidarity,


Correna.

TAFE Offer still falls short

On 23 July the AEU received a revised TAFE EB offer which came as a bit of a surprise given that TAFE EB negotiations were scheduled for the following day.

While there have been a couple of minor changes that reflect concerns that had been raised by the AEU in previous negotiations, our advice is that the offer is still inadequate and therefore unacceptable. You can view the new TAFE EB offer here

AEU members speak on rolling stoppages

Governing Councils PowerPoint: Schools

This presentation is published by the AEU Without Prejudice

Click here to download the presentation from our website.

Governing Councils PowerPoint: Preschools

This presentation is published by the AEU Without Prejudice.

Click here to download this presentation from our website.

AEU Welcomes New IR Minister

The Australian Education Union has welcomed the appointment of Paul Caica as Industrial Relations Minister.
AEU State President Correna Haythorpe hopes he’ll bring a new, constructive approach to the Public Education Enterprise Bargain process.

“This appointment represents a Minister who understands industrial processes.”

“As a former union official, Mr Caica has genuine, first hand experience in negotiating.”

“We’re quietly confident his experience can re-energise the government’s approach to the bargaining process and that he’ll understand the challenges facing the Public Education sector and its workforce.

“We will be seeking a meeting with Mr Caica at his earliest opportunity – and hope resolution of the Education Agreement will be his first achievement in this portfolio” Ms Haythorpe says.

Protest in Prospect - Tomorrow!

Our community campaign for Fair Pay, Fair Funding and a Fair Go for public education will see members gathering at the office of Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith tomorrow. We invite all supporters of public education to attend.

Where: 84 Prospect Rd, Prospect, Office of Jane Lomax-Smith MP.
When : Thursday 17th July, 10.30am sharp.

You may ask why we would rally at Jane’s office…

Despite holding the education portfolio, Minister Jane Lomax-Smith has been conspicuously absent from much of the discussion around our Enterprise Bargaining process. This is of grave concern to the AEU as we believe it’s her duty to promote public education as part of her ministerial portfolio.

AEU members have every right to expect that our Minister would be lobbying on our behalf as part of the EB negotiations. Sadly, this does not seem to be the case. To date, our Minister has promoted EB matters which the AEU believes will significantly disadvantage schools and preschools, such as the proposed Student Centred Resource Funding Model. We can only assume that this is because she has been poorly advised by the Department of Education and Children’s Services as to the impact of this model.

The AEU’s analysis shows that this proposal will:

• create winners and losers with one in three schools facing significant funding cuts

• increase class sizes

• deregulate SSO hours and reclassification structures and have implications for permanency conversions, reclassification and placement.

• increase face to face teaching for Student Counsellors and Teacher Librarians

• reduce the decision making capacity of the Personnel Advisory Committee

• increase workload pressures for leadership

• not quarantine Aboriginal funding

Recently, the AEU met with Ministers Wright, Lomax-Smith and Caica to discuss our frustration at the lack of progress in the negotiations so far, and to impress upon them the need to reach an Enterprise Agreement which will be beneficial to all public education workers in South Australia. Minister Wright facilitated this meeting and the AEU was able to raise our concerns about EB negotiations.

These negotiations will continue and tomorrow’s rally is an important part of our community awareness campaign.

We must ensure that Minister Lomax-Smith plays an active role in lobbying on behalf of public education workers and students. At the rally we will be delivering a signed letter to the Minister which outlines the way in which we expect this to occur.

Make sure your voice is heard tomorrow.

Bring your friends and family. We hope to see you there.

Rally at Michael Wright's Office

AEU Metro Rally | June 17th 2008

All Photos by Philip Griffin ©

AEU EB Update...

AEU (SA) Branch President, Correna Haythorpe, speaks about some of the issues being discussed as negotiations with the State Government continue.