Public Service Association volunteers handed out promotional material about the November 30 rally to CityRail commuters at Town Hall and Central during the morning peak on November 21.

November 30 National Day of Union and Community Action

By Peter Wilson

Act to stop Howard getting re-elected

November 30 is an action organised by the ACTU about Your Rights at Work. It must also be seen as an action by concerned citizens to show that we care about what our government does on many different fronts. These government actions can go towards establishing a fair, tolerant and democratic future for our own children, and the children of the families that we teach. Alternatively, as is the case for the Howard Government, the actions are taking these qualities away.

For teachers, November 30 must show that our profession is prepared to act to oppose the dismantling of the unique Australian institutions and culture that has made a just Australia.

The industrial relations system that was developed in Australia over the past 100 years has given Australians one of the most fair, democratic and tolerant societies with a reasonable living standard for the majority of our population. The Howard Government is destroying this unique industrial system and handing over the power to decide employment conditions to the small group of people who control the economic corporations, most of which are foreign owned.

The High Court (see story page 5) did not make a judgment about the ethics, morality, or the lack of justice in the Workplace Relations Act. It only decided that the Australian Constitution allows employment laws to be made under the corporations power of the Constitution.

This is more a damming reflection that there is nothing in the Australian Constitution or in any Australian act or bill that protects the Australian people from a government that uses its absolute power to abolish the human rights of its own population.

It is not only the industrial relations system that the Howard Government has attacked. Public education, a cornerstone of our democracy and our tolerant society, is also being undermined by the Howard Government by lack of funding and constant and unjust public criticism.

Public schools, TAFE and universities are under-funded by government. A massive amount of government funding is directed into private schools and private providers in post compulsory education.

The increased stratification of schooling will increase the stratification of our society and undermine equity and equality for the majority of the population.

Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop has repeatedly stated that she will force the introduction of performance pay and individual contracts on to state government employed public school teachers via the threat to withhold funding to state governments for public education.

Early start for a big day

The Sky Channel meetings commence at 8.30am. Members are asked to arrive prior to that time.

Members who also wish to attend rallies and marches that follow the Sky Channel broadcast are authorised to stop work for a longer period, if required, to attend such rallies.

All Federation members in the Sydney metropolitan area are strongly encouraged to attend the rally and march from Tumbalong Park in Darling Harbour. Members are advised to take the train to Town Hall station and then walk down Bathurst Street to Darling Harbour.

Marches and rallies are also being held in regional centres.

Union members in Wollongong will march down Crown Street and assemble outside the office of Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells following the Sky Channel meeting at WIN Stadium.

There will be a rally at Goulburn. It will wind from the Workers Club to Belmore Park where participants will be addressed by the contenders for the state seat of Goulburn.

In Albury, people will gather at 8am at the corner of Dean Street and Wodonga Place before marching to QEII Square for the broadcast.

Union members of the Shoalhaven will assemble outside Federal MP for Gilmore Joanna Gash's electoral office, 24 Berry Street, Nowra following the Sky Channel meeting at the Bomaderry Bowling Club.

There will be a rally and march on Federal MP Mark Vaile's office at Port Macquarie.

A street march will leave from Bathurst Panthers at the conclusion of the Sky Channel meeting and travel down William Street to Kings Parade.

Following the Sky Channel meeting at Lismore Workers Club, people are asked to assemble at the corner of Carrington and Magellan streets for a march around the CBD.

The Newcastle Sky Channel meeting/rally will be at Energy Australia Stadium at Broadmeadow (home ground of the Newcastle Knights).

A complete list of Sky Channel venues is available at www.rightsatwork.com.au/campaigns.

We have already seen what can happen in the A to E student reporting dispute, when the Federal Government threatened to withhold funding.

Performance pay and individual contracts can destroy the collegial and cooperative environment that is required to establish a quality school educational environment. Performance pay and individual contracts are the mechanisms whereby the Federal Government can attempt to impose the same ideology that underpins the extreme WorkChoices legislation on to state school teachers, even when public school teachers are not employed by constitutional corporations.

Threats to withhold federal funding and to force individual contracts and performance pay on to NSW public school teachers are also designed to undermine the strength of our state award, and to undermine the strength of Federation.

Undermining the strength of Federation could achieve two goals for the Howard Government: it could undermine our union's ability to advocate for the working conditions of NSW public school and TAFE teachers, and also to advocate for the needs of a public education system.

Howard cannot be allowed to succeed!

Our grandparents provided the society we have had to make our lives what they are. It is up to us to ensure that its qualities remain and improve for our children and our grandchildren.

Peter Wilson is the Assistant General Secretary (Schools).

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Widow pleads for worker rights

For further information

November 2006 contents