Industrial action set to escalate.
In another blow to David Bartlett’s restructure of Post Year 10 education, TAFE teachers are likely to join Secondary College teachers in their campaign against Tasmania Tomorrow.
Ross Dale, AEU President of the TAFE Division/PY10, has called an emergency meeting of the TAFE Executive to develop an action plan.
‘Whatever we decide, I will be doing all I can to minimise the disruption to commerce and industry,” Ross Dale said.
It is believed that TAFE union members will be asked to attend the regional stop work meetings for Secondary College Sector members that begin next Thursday, 29 October in Ulverstone.
(86% of Secondary College union members voted overwhelmingly to attend stop work meetings. They will be considering motions dealing with the problems that have beset Tasmania Tomorrow this year, as well as motions to allow colleges that have not changed to stay out, and for those colleges that began in 2009 to be allowed to drop out. It is also believed that a motion calling for a state-wide strike is being considered if David Bartlett does not allow Elizabeth College to stay out of Tasmania Tomorrow until 2011.)
The AEU TAFE Executive and State Council officers have received a continual stream of enquiries from members demanding that the TAFE Division act in support of their Secondary College colleagues who are bearing the brunt of pressure from the Bartlett government.
Ross Dale said: “In August we gave David Bartlett and his PY10 CEO’s the Ivan Webb report. It shows that the problems go right through the Academy, Polytech and Skills Institute. This was a chance for David Bartlett to show real leadership and for him to start listening. His only response was to offer my teachers a new computer. It isn’t rocket science to fix this mess but he has never tried to talk to me or Greg Brown, the Secondary Colleges president.”
(The Ivan Webb report Needing To Be Heard was commissioned by the AEU to provide qualitative data about the problems with Tasmania Tomorrow that had been identified from the start of the year.)
“He was not listening at the start of the year, did not listen to the Ivan Webb report and his response to the Elizabeth College staff vote shows that he is not listening now.”
“Why would he support the Elizabeth College Association; an unrepresentative group of six who would not have a clue about the devastating affects Tasmania Tomorrow is having? They have only heard what people like the Elizabeth College’s principal and Mike Brakey (CEO Academy) wanted them to hear.”
“My members are despairing that they have never had their concerns listened to and never likely to be taken notice of,will never be heard,” Mr Dale said.
Greg Brown, AEU President Secondary College/PY10 said that it was a sad day for Tasmania that TAFE Tasmania has been completely dismantled. What was an internationally renowned institution for quality training is gone. And now its AEU members have was inevitably being drawn into the mess.
“It will give my members great heart to know that TAFE will be standing beside us. My telephone has just about rung off the hook answering calls from our TAFE colleagues asking what they can do to help. They have had more than ten structural upheavals in continuous restructures over the last ten years under the leadership of John Smyth, (the then former TAFE CEO and now Education Department Secretary). They are tired and weary of one restructure form after another but they know that things will never improve while David Bartlett keeps his head in the sand.”
The TAFE Executive will meet on Tuesday evening to determine its plan of action.
Ross Dale AEU President, TAFE Division/PY10 Greg Brown AEU President, Secondary Colleges/PY10
