ACT teachers are perfectly entitled to withdraw their voluntary labour as part of their industrial campaign against the ACT Government. Indeed, the dispute has highlighted just how much voluntary work has been taken for granted. Whereas employers expect senior executives on high salaries to be on the job virtually 24 hours a day, employers … whether public or private … cannot expect long working weeks from those who are not so well paid. In drawing this to the Government’s and community’s attention, the teachers may extract pay concessions from the Government.
But withdrawal of services in the form of strikes and bans can have another effect. Those most affected will inevitably try to get their services through other means. In this case parents and students have sought the help of other volunteers, notably sporting associations to fill the gap.
Now the teachers have asked the sporting bodies to refuse requests to take school teams away or otherwise break the teachers’ bans.
The teachers should not expect a favourable response. The sporting bodies and parents are more concerned about ensuring their children get access to extra-curricula sport and other activities than in supporting teachers’ wage claims. Of course, the students are the meat in the sandwich here. It may well be that as a result of the teachers’ action alternative arrangements for sporting and cultural activities are made on a permanent basis. That might undermine the teachers’ claim for higher wages, but it would relieve teachers of hours of unpaid work, or at least recharacterise it as truly voluntary and not to be taken for granted.