WHEN TEACHERS TAKE A STANCE: FIGHTING FOR A BETTER WAY OF TEACHING, LEARNING AND LIVING

The battle preceding the war is at hand and I am at the forefront of it all. Yesterday we held cluster level elections for the new South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) committee. Just last week I was re-elected into the site committee at my school. This means every and any decision SADTU takes at the provincial level will be implemented at my site and I am responsible to see to that. I will unfortunately come to loggerheads with my principal and my employer during the process. I am still young in this profession and I'm not yet comfortable with such a mandate but my colleagues have bestowed this honour and burden upon my shoulders believing in my ability to carry it through.

I wrote a post a few weeks ago explaining the entire situation. To prevent repeating myself, I'll leave this link here for anyone to check out the post to get the background of it all Frightening times ahead. Nothing much has changed in negotiations between the employer and the union. Better wages, unsafe working environments, overcrowded classes, lack of stationary, unpaid money to schools for daily functioning are amongst many issues that the Union is fighting for. This stalemate and countless delaying on the part of the employer has resulted in the coming action against it. source

SADTU has decided to implement a "work to rule" campaign in efforts to persuade the employer to finally come to the table. This work-to-rule will see the collapsing of the entire department of education in various provinces where it is carried out. How would this happen? Well let me first outline what work-to-rule is and what it entails. Firstly all member teachers will adhere strictly to working hours, nothing more. Here are the guidelines as outline by SADTU:

During work to rule campaign members should conform to the following tasks:

• Report for duty as expected
• To work for 7 hours strictly
• To execute their daily routine work at school/workplace
• Attend classes as expected and tuition should take place
• Learners should be assessed as per the policy
• Learners' reports should be prepared
• To invigilate examinations written during 7 working hours
• Attend any activity organised by the Union

During work to rule:

• Members should NOT attend departmental workshops and meetings organised within or outside school premises during working hours and beyond 7 hours
• Members should NOT attend staff meetings and morning briefings
• Members should NOT attend SMTs and Subjects Committee meetings
• Members should NOT cooperate with service providers
• Members should NOT conduct or participate in extra classes organised by school, department or service providers such as NGOs
• Members should NOT submit any assessment marks/schedules to the departmental officials at district and head office
• Members should NOT cooperate with all Departmental officials
• Members should NOT submit any information to the department
• Members should NOT organise or participate in any extra-mural activities (sports, music, tours, etc)
• Members should NOT perform pastoral duties
  
  These guideline are strategic in crippling the running of the department of education. Our learners' education will not suffer because of this but the employer will be left virtually blind as to what school are doing and the progress thereof. I wish this will be enough to get the employer's attention because should this fail then we will go on strike and leave our posts at work. It better not come to that... I hope. source