Most members active in the union have seen their activism as entirely compatible with leadership roles in their other professional associations and within the system. In fact, many have found that the system-wide experience and knowledge gained through participation in union affairs has led to career advancement in the education sector and beyond. However, this structure and approach has not been without its local challenges.
Putting our solidarity to the test
Sometimes, teachers in different sectors or at different promotional levels may perceive an advantage in forming a breakaway group to pursue their own special interests, and the government of the day may see disunity as a way of defeating education union claims.
'I don’t want to come back to a divided school’: ACT school principals and the CE(EP) Act
In 1982, the federal government under Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser tried to defeat our union’s salary campaign by suspending some – but not all – teachers taking strike action in the ACT. Using the infamous CE(EP) Act, the Fraser Government acted to suspend teachers only in those schools scheduled to take part in that day’s rolling stoppages, locking them out of their workplaces. They threatened striking teachers with dismissal and promised rewards for disavowing union action.
Divisions on sectoral lines have not tended to last, and by 1984 the VTU, TTUV and VSTA had re-amalgamated to form the Teachers Federation of Victoria (TFV). This is now the AEU Victorian Branch.
‘Robbing Peter to pay Paul?’ Saying no to resource redistribution between sectors In 1986, prior to ACT self-government, federal government budget cuts were putting pressure on ACT school resourcing, and there was also a perception that more resources were needed in the ACT’s primary schools.
An internal report (the ‘Price report’) commissioned by the ACT Schools Authority recommended a redistribution of resources which would have significantly reduced the staff in secondary schools and transferred resources to the primary sector. The proposers may have assumed that the primary sector would support the proposed redistribution, splitting from their secondary colleagues out of self-interest. But the unity of ACTTF (now AEU) members across the primary and secondary divide was decisive. Primary school teacher Rosemary Richards (pictured below) – a candidate in that year’s Branch Secretary election – explicitly campaigned on a policy of opposing the redistribution of resources within the school system and was elected.
The response across the ACT was strong and immediate: teachers abandoned rolling stoppages and took unified action across all sectors on the same day. Importantly, most school principals encouraged unity in this action: they knew that the government’s action was designed to create fear and disunity, and that the most important thing of all was for their whole school team to return to the workplace with a sense of solidarity intact.
Breakaway groups
Solidarity between teachers has also been tested from time to time. The Victorian Secondary Masters Association (VSMA) broke away from the Victorian Teachers’ Union in 1948 and the Victorian Secondary Teachers Association (VSTA) was formed in 1954 after female members were admitted. Victorian preschool teachers formed the Kindergarten Teachers Association of Victoria (KTAV) in 1954 and in 1967 the Technical Teachers’ Association of Victoria (TTAV, later TTUV) also formed their own union.
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