speeches from protest - Friday 7 March

Kylie Busk: De La Salle College, Malvern

It is a great honour to stand before you today to speak in support of this resolution.

In particular I am proud to represent 55 colleagues from my school who are participating in today’s action. We are united in our concerns over the future of our profession; about difficulties in attracting new people to share in the important work we do in our schools; about concerns over the retention of quality, experienced teachers within our sector.

Also in the audience today are some of our union colleagues, who are supporting our action. The support across all sectors of our industry on this issue is tremendous. One of these supporters is an AEU member who retired at the end of last year after 41 years in the teaching profession. Proudly this inspirational teacher is my Mum, Anne. For both my sister – who is a secondary teacher in a rural Government school - and I, she has been a great example of how to develop a career and remain enthusiastic and committed over time. Mum, and other experienced people like her in our schools are a voice of wisdom, who play an important mentoring role for the passing on of knowledge in our profession. Teachers who invest their life work in schools across Victoria retire on wages which are pitiful when compared to our colleagues in other states, leaving them with superannuation packages that do little to reward their commitment over decades.

I am now in my 12th year of teaching. During that time I have experienced dramatic intensification in terms of workload. Like my colleagues I am conscious of providing multi-faceted lessons that address a range of learners, answering the increasing number of phone calls and emails promptly and with care, being responsible for supervision of students especially on yard duty, actively engaging with students through participation in excursions and camps, participating in regular professional learning, logging details into student databases, writing comprehensive reports and attending meetings with colleagues, parents and others, while showing genuine pastoral concern and support for my students - and the list of expectations and demands on teachers continues to grow. These are similar to the expectations on my friends in other professions. The big difference is that in other industries my friends earn between $15,000 and $100,000 more per year for their professional activities.

Like many of my friends and colleagues I am struggling to save for a house deposit, something that is looking increasingly out of reach as a teacher. I am angry that this Victorian Government fails to value our work and its benefit to communities across the state. The current wage offer of 3.25% fails to even keep pace with inflation, meaning the real value of my wage continues to shrink. Never before have the costs of living, been so out of step with the salaries of teachers. Like many people I started my teaching career with, I regularly consider the prospect of having to leave teaching, or at least look at teaching overseas to improve my earning potential in order to make home ownership and financial security a reality. For me this would mean leaving a job that I love and something I feel I’m just getting to be good at.

So as pleased as I am to stand before you and see the tremendous amount of support here, I urge you to think about the commitment we need to make beyond today. We must continue to be active and apply pressure to this government for as long as is necessary for them to move into genuine negotiation over wages, for the future of our profession and in the interests of the young people in our schools. That is worth fighting for. I urge you to support the motion.