[BlondieUK]

Ms Kelly tweeted to union president Mary Bluett. ''Children should never be pawns in industrial action. I still have my prep report. Think of something else.'' Ms Bluett said the decision to escalate the campaign had been taken as a last resort.

''This December, the Baillieu government will have had the AEU's log of claims for two years.'' She said initial industrial action, including a 24-hour strike and a ban on Coalition MPs visiting schools, had not led to the government changing its position.

''In escalating the bans we have chosen to highlight the enormous number of hours teachers spend outside the 38-hour week. Teachers work an additional 30 to 70 hours preparing the reports. This work is unpaid.''


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/call-to-...l#ixzz2CndE8oIb

The work is not unpaid, Ms. Bluett. Writing reports has always been a fundamental part of teaching.

This rationale is ridiculous. You get paid a salary and there are tasks that have to be done. Reporting is one of them. End of story.

[rosiebird]

I think they deserve to be paid for those hours and for hours spent lesson planning.

[madmother]

Okay, if they are to be paid for that (and I too thought it was a standard increment of the job), then there needs to be a performance based wage system introduced.

I can name quite a few teachers who should never be allowed near children!

[SarahM72]

I think what she means is not that it is unpaid as such, but that it is invisible work (like much of teaching work), and therefore teaching is undervalued and underpaid as a whole (ie the pay rate doesn't take into account and fairly renumerate this invisible work). I think it is a fair enough comment. It conveys the essence of the problem.

ETA: I'm actually not sure how teachers are paid. But if they are only paid for contact hours with students, or for 9 to 3 work, then yes writing reports after hours would be unpaid work.

This post has been edited by SarahM72: 21/11/2012, 07:33 AM

[casime]

I think she means that teachers put in an enormous number of hours outside of the standard working day they are supposed to be paid for and this is undervalued and under appreciated.

Ironically, today is "Go Home From Work on Time Day". There is a massive push in so many industries for people to address the work/life balance. Yet here we are, demanding teachers continue to do incredible amounts of unpaid overtime so that parents can have a few touchy-feely comments on a report card.

[Dinosaurus]

I agree that the work is not unpaid, that salaried employees tend to have busy periods when they work heavy hours and leaner weeks when they ... lunch

However I still agree that teaching in general is under-valued in Australia, that the base wage should be higher and that the opportunity to be financially rewarded for doing this job should grow with experience as it does in other professions.

Not everyone will be a Principal, not everyone wants to be one. Being a great teacher shouldn't mean that person is only capable of making 150% of minimum wage when similar experience i other professions can have you earning 400% of minimum wage or more.

So...

I agree that writing reports is part and parcel of the job but I agree the teachers union have been fobbed off for a long time, not had their election promise met, don't get paid enough and generally they have my support. If not writing reports for a term actually gets the attention they require and deserve then I think parents need to ask questions of why the government has been stonewalling them for 2 years rather than why teachers are doing it.

[Charlie & Lola]

Perhaps teachers should only have 4 weeks annual leave like most other employees? They would then have weeks of student free time for planning, professional development and administrative tasks.

[*Spikey*]

The average public servant works between a 7.5 and 8 hour day. If you throw in half an hour for lunch, that means they start at 9:00am and finish at 5:00pm. For the most part, teachers are public servants, so the 'standard hours' is a reasonable benchmark to use when working out how much unpaid hours teachers are doing.

Now, most of the teachers I know are at school from 8:30am to about 4:30pm (sometimes later if there are meetings and such).

THEN, they go home and do additional stuff, for which they don't get paid.

So, I think BlondieUK is wrong and Ms Bluett is right. Teachers do a lot of unrecognised paid work (that isn't contact hours at school), and in addition, they do a lot of unpaid hours as well.

I think its time the NSW government (and the rest of the states and territories for that matter) stepped up to the plate and paid them a wage that reflects the effort teachers put in.

[*Spikey*]

Perhaps teachers should only have 4 weeks annual leave like most other employees? They would then have weeks of student free time for planning, professional development and administrative tasks.

In which case, they should get paid for it, no? So why does that make it different to paying them for their after hours work? (Oh, and if you take holidays from people, you have to fold that back into their salary, as in 'pay out the unused days', you can't just take away an award condition without compensation)

It doesn't really matter when they do the work, just as long as they DO get paid for it. Which is the point the unions are trying to make.

[~TCBF~]

So, I think BlondieUK is wrong and Ms Bluett is right. Teachers do a lot of unrecognised paid work (that isn't contact hours at school), and in addition, they do a lot of unpaid hours as well.

I agree. But they also get eight weeks of extra leave per year. I have two children in junior primary school and I struggle to see how either of their teachers are working longer than the standard working day (9-5 with 1/2 hour lunch). All the kids are generally out of their hair by 3.20. There's an hour and forty minutes to do any admin and marking (not that my grade one and two children would have much in the way of marking). And they STILL get stacks of extra leave.

I think teachers have a very valuable job, don't get me wrong. But my sympathies toward their plight have diminished the more contact I have with the school system. Maybe because I was a public servant who worked really hard, long hours for similar money and didn't get even half as much leave?