As always, we endeavour to bring you professional and industrial news and features that will enrich your working life with this latest edition of Bedrock.
May we take this opportunity to pay tribute to former IEU-QNT Senior Industrial Officer John Spriggs who died on 12 April 2024.
We want to pay our respects to John and extend our heartfelt condolences to John’s family, friends and loved ones. John made an extraordinary contribution to the IEU-QNT for over 28 years.
IEU-QNT members will remember John’s tireless advocacy and many achievements across our union, especially in the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector.
To his IEU colleagues, John was a friend of unlimited bounds and generosity – providing support wherever we needed it and always characterised by fundamental good humour.
We are the poorer for his passing. Vale John Spriggs.
In this edition we outline the industrial reforms introduced by the Labor government that should have positive benefits on the lives of workers, particularly those in highly feminised sectors such as ECEC (read article).
Taking advantage of these reforms, the IEU is seeking a significant pay rise for teachers in community-based preschools in NSW, with its new campaign Unite for Change (read article).
In Queensland and Victoria, preschool teachers have won pay and conditions in line with school teachers, providing a good model for NSW (read article).
We look at Blaxland Preschool’s nature play, unique for its inclusivity (read article).
Does too much screen time limit a child’s language development? According to new research, it does (read article).
With the current workforce shortage, getting more men to work in the early childhood sector seems like an obvious answer. But how can that be achieved? (read article).
Communication is critical for ECEC teachers. We have some refresher tips on talking to children and interpreting body language (read article).
Have you ever been told by an employer to take care of your own wellbeing through meditation or some other activity when the real problem is your workload? This is an issue in some workplaces (read article).