Diverging directions
The IEU was known as the Independent Teachers Association (ITA) and it was a pivotal year for our union.
The ITA’s rapid growth and its increasingly muscular voice in both the professional and industrial sphere attracted great interest, with internal political divisions characterising the pages of Newsmonth throughout 1985.
Broadly speaking, there were those who wished to pursue a more independent and assertive industrial line and those who preferred a more conservative agenda.
Sex ed spurs division
There was certainly considerable disquiet the year before when the ITA organised a symposium entitled, “Human sexuality and the school” to discuss whether sex education should be taught in schools.
Reverend Fred Nile’s Festival of Light and a group claiming to represent Catholic parents actively lobbied against the proposal. The symposium went ahead.
Opposing opinions
Allegations and counter-allegations of extreme left-wing and extreme right-wing external political interference of the ITA were features in the Letters to the Editor pages in Newsmonth, and later between the opposing camps of the Secretary and the President of the ITA.
Allegations that conservative Christian lobby the National Civic Council (NCC) was seeking to influence or infiltrate the ITA aroused considerable concern among members.
Tony Abbott, then a student priest and aspiring journalist with now defunct current affairs magazine The Bulletin, interviewed ITA General Secretary Michael Raper and published a polemic against the ITA’s policy on privacy in employment.
The opening clause of this policy, which hardly seems controversial today, may provide a sense of the tensions at play and the workplace rights the union was attempting to secure for its members in 1985:
1.1 Teachers do not forego their ordinary civil rights upon entering the teaching profession and therefore the ITA opposes any behaviour, communication, investigation, activity or campaign which would invade the right to privacy of any teacher in employment or offering for employment.
Ultimately, the executive election of 1985 demonstrated strong support for General Secretary Michael Raper and his team, with Alan Burke becoming the newly elected President. (Tony Abbott subsequently left the seminary and became Australia’s 28th Prime Minister.)
Strong growth and ACTU affiliation
In 1985 the ITA had more than 11,000 members. 563 new members joined that year and 97 of these are still members today. Congratulations to these 97 who qualify for their 40-year anniversary gift.
Happy 40th birthday Lansdowne! The Lansdowne Sub Branch, which covers schools from Lakemba to Liverpool including Auburn and Fairfield, was established in 1985 as the ITA’s 14th sub branch.
The Independent Teachers Federation of Australian (ITFA), as the IEU’s combined federal union was then known, had 17,000 members (the IEU now has 75,000 members throughout Australia).
In 1985 ITFA affiliated with the ACTU and representatives attended the union’s first ACTU Congress. They added their support to the Prices and Incomes Accord (Mark II) and contributed to the ACTU’s education policy.
Success with long service leave
One of the major campaigns prosecuted by the ITA in 1985 was for improved long service leave (LSL). Entitlements for teachers in non-government schools in NSW lagged behind the conditions enjoyed in every other state. Members needed to work for 15 years in one place before they could take their LSL.
An LSL campaign committee was convened in 1985 led by Dick Shearman – who became Secretary in 1989. Employers initially rejected the union’s claim; however, Chevalier College in the Southern Highlands became the first non-government school in NSW to do the right thing by its teachers and introduce LSL parity with government schools.
Inferior offers were made by employer groups and were rejected by the members until finally, a much-improved offer was put to members, who overwhelmingly endorsed it.
The ITA continued to prosecute a claim for two hours release from face-to-face for members teaching in primary schools on the basis that teachers in government schools gained this entitlement in 1984. In the face of persistent employer intransigence, it would take more than 20 years for members to win this improvement.
The more things change
As the saying goes, the past is a different country. That said, perhaps that country in 1985 was not as different as we might think.
The pages of the 1985 editions of Newsmonth contain articles on teacher burnout, class sizes being too large, and housing unaffordability in NSW.
The struggle continues and the IEU acknowledges every member, past and present, who has joined the collective fight for a brighter future for themselves, their colleagues and their profession.
