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July 19th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda Public schools could close across Victoria in September with thousands of education support staff cleared to join teachers and principals in a mass strike.
Fair Work Australia on Thursday granted an Australian Education Union (AEU) request to let its 7000 members in administrative roles, including teaching aides and librarians, join teachers on a 24-hour strike.
More than 30,000 teachers and support staff are expected to walk off the job in September, potentially forcing the closure of more than 200 schools across the state.
Fair Work Australia approved the AEU application for staff such as teachers’ aides, IT staff and administrative workers to join teachers in the industrial action over pay claims.
There are about 33,000 teachers and 7000 support staff covered by the two separate protected action applications.
AEU Victoria president Mary Bluett said it was an historic decision.
“We expect many more schools to be totally closed than for the last strike and certainly in excess of 30,000 stopping work,” Ms Bluett told reporters.
The date will be set at a council meeting of the union next month but the strike is expected to take place in the first week of September.
About 200 of the state’s 1500 government schools closed during a June 7 strike by about 10,000 teachers.
Ms Bluett said the September action would be the first joint stop-work involving principals, teachers and support staff in the state.
Union members will vote in a ballot in coming weeks, but Ms Bluett was confident there was strong support for a walk-out.
She said it was difficult to know how many schools would shut down.
“But the overwhelming majority of employees in our government schools will be stopping work in that first week in September,” she added.
Teacher’s aide Alison Davis said she would be first in line if support staff voted to strike with teachers early in September.
“The salary is a joke and it’s an insult to our work value,” said Ms Davis, who earns about $35,000 per year helping secondary students with special needs at a school in Melbourne’s west.
“Our work is severely undervalued, and I know many of my colleagues will be second and third in line behind me.”
Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews said teachers were only asking that Premier Ted Baillieu keep his pre-election promise that they would be made the nation’s best paid.
“Parents across the system need to understand this is not some greedy claim, this is not some ambit claim, this is teachers asking for not one dollar more and not one dollar less than what the premier Ted Baillieu promised,” he told reporters.
“This premier has (been) … at war with nurses, at war with teachers, you know, he might be able to say he supports good-faith bargaining but he can’t bargain in good faith.”
Teachers are pushing for a 30 per cent pay increase over three years and a reduction of short-term contracts, while the government is offering a 2.5 per cent annual rise with further increases delivered through productivity gains.
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