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Seen around the SSTUWA
November State Council Conference was recently held at the SSTUWA’s headquarters in West Perth.
State Council is the union’s supreme decision-making body, with the conference being held twice a year in June and November.
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State Council delegates gathered for the two-day event to participate in professional development and vote on motions directing the SSTUWA’s future activities.
At November State Council Conference delegates heard from keynote speakers Dr Mike Newton on wellness in education, as well as AEU Victorian Branch President Meredith Peace. During the conference delegates also took time to support the Public Sector Alliance’s campaign to reform WA’s public sector wage policy by attending a meeting at Perth Town Hall. For full coverage of November State Council Conference, turn back to page 6 of this issue of Western Teacher. Last month the SSTUWA also recognised members who have been with the union for 40 years at an event at the SSTUWA building, mirroring similar ceremonies held this year already across the state.
The SSTUWA would like to thank these 40-year members for their long-standing commitment to bettering work conditions for their colleagues and public education.
40-year members: (Front L-R) General Secretary Mary Franklyn, President Pat Byrne, Deborah Taylor and Geraldine Hardy. (Back L-R) Rona Gartner, Richard Meagher, Rodney Cohan, Shelley Curry, John McGarrigal and Senior Vice President Matt Jarman. 40-year members: Richard Meagher.
40-year members: Rona Gartner. 40-year members: Geraldine Hardy. 40-year members: John McGarrigal.
State Council: Conference speaker Dr Mike Netwon. State Council: Goldfields district delegates (back from left) Danielle Boyd, Joey Wright; (seated from left) Caitlin McKerchar and Heather Riseberry.
National education and union news
Rebuild early childhood workforce through TAFE
The release of the paper, Shaping Our Future; A ten-year strategy to ensure a sustainable, high-quality children’s education and care workforce 2022–2031, highlights the critical need for greater investment in TAFE, according to the AEU. “As Shaping Our Future states, declining enrolments in approved educator qualifications along with increasing demand for qualified early childhood staff have created urgent workforce challenges for the early childhood sector,” AEU Federal President Correna Haythorpe said.
“This highlights the pressing need for the Federal Government to invest in TAFE and help ensure a sustainable supply of highly skilled early childhood educators. “Without this, the early childhood sector will become increasingly unable to function, making it harder for parents to go to work and leaving children without the benefits of a high-quality early education.”
TAFE is the centre of our national vocational education system. It is ideally placed to educate the workforce needed to address the shortage in the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) sector.
Importantly, TAFE’s regional footprint would enable governments to target local needs more effectively, ensuring students can study and potentially work in their local communities.
“The TAFE system is a hugely valuable public asset and it is being neglected by the federal government,” Ms Haythorpe said.
“The federal government has slashed more than $3 billion out of TAFEs since 2013.
“Restoring this funding would create a triple dividend for Australia; a skilled, capable early childhood workforce, increased parent workforce participation to boost the economy and improved early learning outcomes for Australian children.”
Urgent need to make workplaces safer for women
Sexual harassment is often compounded by insecure work which deters working people from raising issues and seeking help – according to a new survey commissioned by the ACTU.
Women are more likely to be in insecure work, leaving them at greater risk of harm in the workplace.
26 per cent of retail and 22 per cent of health workers reported experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace in the last 12 months according to an ACTU survey – both predominantly female workforces that are frequently employed on a casual, insecure basis. Insecure workers were significantly more likely than permanent workers to not take any action after an incident of violence or harassment (50 per cent vs 32 per cent), because they feared negative consequences for themselves.
Women were also far less likely than men to take action after experiencing crude or offensive behaviour (53 per cent vs 43 per cent) and unwanted sexual attention (31 per cent vs 25 per cent).
The union movement calls upon the Morrison Government to take action to make workplaces safer by implementing all of the recommendations from the Respect@Work report. ACTU President Michele O’Neil said the Morrison Government talked a lot this year about women’s health and safety in the workplace but very little action had been seen.
“They have failed to implement key recommendations from the Respect@ Work report that they commissioned, and which would make a significant difference in the lives of working women,” she said.
“The issue of women’s safety at work can’t be addressed in isolation, it is worsened by insecure jobs. Women in insecure work feel disempowered because they fear reprisals from their employers, such as losing their job.
“Only a quarter of women who took action after an incident of sexual harassment were satisfied with their employers’ response. One hundred per cent of workers deserve to be safe at work. The Morrison Government is failing working
women by refusing to make employers responsible for preventing sexual harassment.”
Australian children at risk of being left behind on early learning
Children are at risk of being left behind, the AEU has warned, as new Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data shows Australia’s poor performance on early learning. AEU Federal President Correna Haythorpe said the findings in the OECD’s Education at a Glance 2021 report pointed to the urgent need for reform in the early years. “We spend half the OECD average of 0.6 per cent of GDP on pre-primary education for three to five-year-olds, equal third lowest of OECD nations,” she said. “Australia has the fourth highest level of reliance on parent out-of-pocket costs to fund pre-primary education and we rank 41 out of 44 OECD nations on preschool attendance in the year before school. “Governments across the country need to urgently consider how they can make preschool more accessible for all children. “These include reforms to provide access to free preschool programs reducing out-of-pocket costs for parents, extending funding for two years of preschool to include three-year-olds and reducing complexity in the early learning system. “Children who have the opportunity to attend preschool are more likely to start school ready to learn, more likely to finish school ready for life and more likely to participate in paid employment. “They’re healthier and have higher levels of social participation. “The AEU calls on all governments to prioritise a nationally consistent approach to early learning reform giving all children the best start to their education.”
There are now 867,900 Australians working multiple jobs – the highest number since the ABS began tracking secondary jobs in 1994. Worse yet, there are now a record number of Australians working three or more jobs – 209,100 – a shocking 10.8 per cent increase from June 2020.
A new ACTU report has also revealed that workers who do multiple jobs still earn 17.5 per cent less than the national average – usually people just working one job. Women working multiple jobs are significantly worse off than men, earning almost $10,000 less per year than their male counterparts. Women account of 53.7 per cent of multiple jobs holders. Millennials and Generation Z are most affected – 55 per cent of workers with two or more jobs are under 35. The surge in people working multiple jobs is being driven by employers offering insecure work, often to deal with the pandemic itself. Multiple job holding has surged most in administrative and support services where cleaners, security guards and call centres workers have been taken on.
Healthcare and social assistance also saw one of the largest increases in multiple job holding. Workers in this sector are already overworked and underpaid, whilst being on the pandemic frontline. To read more visit: bit.ly/3nUPif5
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