worzel

I was behind the teachers and their request for inflation-busting payrises until this week - 23% over three years is derisory. Even when they announced that there would be no education for one morning while they attended a stop-work meeting I was with them.

But last night my daughter was sent home with a letter telling us not to send her to school this morning as there would not be adequate supervision. So my 10 year old daughter has been home alone this morning and been left in charge of locking up, turning the air-con off etc.

I support the right to withdraw labour as a last resort, but only as a last resort. Despite the Industrial Relations Commission instructing them not to strike they have anyway, and deliberately set out to cause maximum disruption.

So stuff them!

We had the taxi drivers on strike yesterday too. I hope to hell that this isn't a sign of things to come in this new Krudd-led Australia.

moneypenny20

To give you no notice (which a note from last night for this morning amounts to) is outrageous. There's no need for it and it will lose them much needed support. Silly sods.

bridie

The taxi drivers make me laugh - it's alright for half of Perth to have to wait hours for a taxi so they dont loose their income!! FFS

As for the teachers I agree, they will lose a lot of support now

I_Will_Freckle

I got a taxi yesterday no problem. What kind of strike was it?

worzel

The taxi drivers protested in the CBD first until someone made a lunge for the Premier. After that they moved it to the airport. If you have ever waited over an hour at Perth airport for a taxi the irony of that won't be lost on you!

worzel

Apparently some drivers are paying for a special licence to operate on the dangerous but lucrative night shift but regular drivers were muscling in on their turf. So I guess the daytime drivers were not affected.

Sam

it depended upon the school

We only had 3 teachers in today and 25 children, so we split them between us (and support staff of course)

We told parents it was up to them if they wanted to send the kids this morning but there was limited supervision and no lessons

We requested that children come in from lunch time to resume normal class activities!

Amazulu

The Taxi setup in Perth is pathetic. The worst I have experienced in a western city.

Gov. should bring in a mini-cab system.

thpinkpussycat

Can I just add that we did have a letter last week advising us of today’s strike but saying at there would be staff on hand to supervisors, but if you could make other arrangement. I took this to mean if you don’t work keep the kids at home in the morning, however if you have to work don’t worry someone will be there to look after your kids.

I also tried to ring the school the this morning to try and find out what kind of supervision there would be, only to get no help from the receptionist who just parroted the letter to me and could not tell me what would happen to the kids that had no choice to go into school this morning.

thpinkpussycat

Its great to see that some schools acted responsibly and remembered thier duty of care

gobbyjock

We had a notice yesterday aplogising for the lateness but that there would be supervision for any kids who came to school. It didn`t say anything about what time normal classes would resume so I`ve kept my daughter off all day as I can`t see the point in sending her in for a couple of hours this afternoon. She is in the dining room wading through her 30 pages of maths homework (the look on her face when I told her she wasn`t going in today was great but not as funny as when I put her homework in front of her)

NKSK version 2

Teachers are massively underpaid in WA - they should be paid a lot more. You could argue that the govt has allowed the current situation by treating them so poorly over the last decade.

As for the notice....to be fair the teachers passed a resolution at least a week ago advising of disruption today. It was the actions of the Department for Education (surpirse surprise) that caused the confusion.

Even when the strike was not ordered to be 'illegal' by the IRC, the dept said that it would be business as usual which is pretty damn stupid bearing in mind that a strike was occurring.

There was no guarantee that there would be enough staff or even that they would be appropriate, the dept just ploughed ahead in its determination to prove that all is fine and that they wouldn't lose the PR debate.

God knows who would have been looking after your child at school - would they have been police checked? What would have been the staff/student ration? One adult to 100 kids?

The IRC ruling was never a guarantee that teachers wouldn't still be on strike and the fact they still went on strike and that their union is threatened with deregistration shows how absolutely pissed off they must be. I mean come on, they are never the most radical of groups are they?

NKSK version 2

I think that they acted completely irresponsibly. The school above - what would have happened if 200 kids had turned up and there were 3 staff?
What if the three staff hadn't turned up?

It was a complete gamble and a high risk strategy - the risk being the safety of your child.

worzel

We had a letter from the school a week ago to notify us of the action but that school would be open. We did not make other arrrangements based on this letter alone not any government communications or the media.

But as I understand it the teachers chose not to notify schools whether they would attend or not until the last minute.

I find that attitude incredibly irresponsible for people I trust to look after my daughter.

If you have an issue with the government, fine, take it out on them by not submitting paperwork. Don't take it out on my daughter or my family.

NKSK version 2

I'm not too sure about this. Schools knew about the industrial action a week ago (at least).
The IRC ruled at the beginning of the week but the union stated that they may not follow the directive. They needed to meet and make a decsion - they only had two days to make this decision.

In all of this uncertainty and bearing in mind that teachers never at one point said that the strike was called off, surely banking on everything being hunky dory was high risk?