Teachers, unions demand safe schools

Right now, many teachers are not feeling the love. 

Basic safeguards are not yet in place for education staff ahead of the 2022 return to school.

As the Omicron variant rampages through the community, infecting hundreds of thousands and disrupting supply chains of essential items, there have been no announcement of measures to protect teachers once school recommences. 

“I haven’t heard anything from schools or Vic gov yet. Spose they’re still on holiday,” a teacher posted on the IEU Victoria Tasmania Facebook site on Monday.

Another laid out teacher concerns: “Need Co2 monitors – HEPA filters, N95 mask for kids and teachers, free available rapid tests, boosters for high school kids (why is this being forgotten – many will return with waning immunity?) And all (children) 5-12 double vaxed. Only then will schools be a safe workplace for all. It can be done. It’s not like we didn’t have advance warning. Kids and teachers should not be out in harm’s way because of terrible planning”.

Other posts highlighted the lack of back-ups for Learning Support Officers and staff in regional areas and asked about the progress of mooted ventilation measures.

The backdrop to such messages is the announcement by National Cabinet that staff in schools, early childhood centres and post-secondary colleges are now exempt from COVID isolation rules. And the lack of any other announcements about education settings. 

Nine media reports on growing concerns about return to school planning.

In response, the IEU Victoria Tasmania made a detailed call for sensible return to school measures, including: access to rapid antigen tests and P2 / N95 masks at no cost for education workers; priority access to boosters for those who may not yet otherwise be eligible; assurances that staff will only attend workplaces to perform duties which cannot be undertaken remotely; measures to counter workload intensification and avoid ‘hybrid’ in-person and remote teaching regimes; and assurances that days of work missed due to contracting COVID or isolation requirements will not be deducted from leave entitlements or pay.

The Union, aware that many members were pushed to breaking point to deliver the best possible outcome for students last year, knows what is required to push through a third year of exceptional challenges.

Whether governments are listening is less certain.

“Schools and childcare settings are high-contact places – we’ve seen multiple times over the course of this pandemic how quickly infection can spread,” says IEU Victoria Tasmania General Secretary Deb James. 

“For the sake of everyone in our school communities, the start of the 2022 school year must be planned and cautious. Education workers must be properly resourced, properly protected and properly consulted, and every step must be taken to minimise the risk of transmission.”

Deb James says the “debacle” over the accessibility of COVID testing must be resolved before schools can safely return. 

Deb’s IEU counterpart in NSW/ACT, Pam Smith, said the exemption of education staff from COVID isolation rules was “an abject failure of public policy”.

She warned that such a decision could have “disastrous consequences” and result in more school closures and disruptions – the opposite of its purported intention. 

“It means our members will be forced to work knowing either that they are a close contact and could infect others or that they are working with close contacts and could get infected and carry the illness to their own families – this only adds to current anxieties,” Smith said. 

“Watering down work health and safety provisions in the third year of the pandemic because the government failed to plan is unacceptable.” 

Australian Education Union Victorian branch president Meredith Peace said the current settings compromise the safety of education staff and pose a greater risk to the health and wellbeing of students, especially those who haven’t yet been vaccinated.

She told ABC 774 radio the proposed system can’t work if teachers and schools don’t have access to RATs and encouraged teachers who have concerns about their safety should continue not attend school.

Deb James told The Age the exemption is “irresponsible and dangerous”, putting individual teachers in the terrible position where they must choose between potentially infecting their students and colleagues or leaving their class untaught.

“We want schools to remain open to on-campus learning, but not at the cost of unacceptable risk to staff and students.”

Deb is no lone voice on such matters – the entire Union movement is campaigning against the “let it rip” mentality which has enabled Omicron to cripple the economy almost as effectively as mandated lockdowns.

On Monday, ACTU secretary Sally McManus said "too many people are being put in harm’s way and the failure of the Federal Government to secure RATs means we do not have the tools to keep ourselves and the community safe".

Following a "crisis meeting" of national union leaders, she warned that employees will strike if employers do not protect them well enough.

"For those employers that will not work with us to make workplaces safe, the union movement will do what is necessary, up to and including ceasing work".

The meeting of 30 major unions demanded urgent Omicron risk assessments, free rapid antigen tests and N95 masks, and upgraded safety protections.

Unions will be writing to all employers reminding them of their obligations to take all reasonable steps to keep workers safe.

The lack of a national plan is frustrating teachers, and they’re speaking out. 

“I suspect a great many teachers will be considering leaving the profession in the face of this ‘schools must never close again’, ‘the children are suffering’ pile-on. I don’t know what rock people were living under, but teachers were doing their best to manage remote learning, which is nothing like home schooling, while keeping everyone safe. Now they are being told loudly and clearly that the safety of themselves and their families is far less important than having kids attend school,” Kristen Hurley of Seaholme wrote to The Age.

Judith Geraghty, Strathmore added that with primary school-aged children just starting to get their vaccinations now there will be many unvaccinated by the time schools open. 

“What contingencies are in place to reduce the risk of teachers getting COVID as they inevitably will and to replace the many that do?

“Teachers, along with many others, have done an extraordinary job over the past two years. It’s about time our leaders listen to the teachers’ unions and give teachers the consideration and respect they deserve.”

On 774 ABC radio’s Conversation Hour on Monday, talkback caller Jane, a teacher from Oak Park said teachers were “very worried about going back into classrooms full of COVID with kids who aren’t vaccinated”. 

“I just wonder about where people’s thoughts are for the actual teachers and their mental health and what they’re going through.”

The IEU lists return to school necessities, 17 January.