Dear Gail
(Love your work by the way.)
The latest news is...
1. Two weeks ago we went on strike for one day. The strike had a huge turnout, the biggest ever. Schools were closed, nearly 100% of principals got onboard after being bullied by Education Queensland and we voted unanimously for further industrial action.
2. The outcome? Silence. Nothing, no real follow up or debate in any of the media and because there is no union discussion forum for teachers, no discussion either.
3. The latest official union update is that any further action will be next term...six weeks away at the earliest. In the interim there will be another ballot about further action...powerful stuff hey?
Me and a couple of colleagues are very angry at this outcome. We should be going in hard, right now. Work bans are an obvious target but the Union seem very unsure of this. Banning all this poorly paid, pointless work teachers do for the QSA, because there is no external exam, would also be a great move.
Rumour has it that the Union and Government both expect it to go to the IRC. This might explain the lousy Union response. Another rumour is that any pay offer will follow the economic recovery and be end weighted - that is, they'll offer something like 4, 4.5 and 6.
I will also add that it is becoming very clear that the QTU does things very slowly and inefficiently and don't want people like me coming in with new ideas and stirring the pot. There have been some deliberate attempts to shut down debate, stop my presence being felt and to reject people's ideas that have clear merit.
In short, this Union appears to be another branch of the ALP and is not putting it's members first. The whole thing is farcical and the outcome will be bad.
Sound familiar?
Smithers
