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Bad Apple Bullies
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Ask your Local Member-
What has Anna Bligh done about workplace bullying in Queensland schools since 23 June 2002?
Are fewer Queensland teachers being driven out of work in 2008?
One month later, on 25 July, 2002 the Queensland Teachers' Union admitted that Queensland teachers were being bullied out of work -
... With the average age of the teacher workforce now into the late forties, the union is seeing more and more members, who are the victim of bullying and harassment, retiring on the grounds of ill-health out of the workforce, unable to comprehend what has happened to them.
Some of those members had exhausted all avenues open to them to no avail. ...
In 2007, five years later, Dr Dan Riley of the University of New England and Professor Deidre Duncan from the Australian Catholic University surveyed more than 800 teachers in government, Catholic and independent schools.
They found that workplace bullying was rife in schools in Queensland.
"We didn't expect to find what we did - we have a problem - teachers are not happy and we believe this is very serious."
"Government schools are not very attentive to bullying."
"Claims made (by bullied teachers) often take a long time to be investigated or are ignored altogether," Dan Riley said.
Ask your QTU organiser -
What have the QTU been doing about workplace bullying in Queensland schools since 25 July 2002?
Are fewer Queensland teachers being driven out of work in 2008?
What achievements - for members - do the Queensland Teachers' Union celebrate each Labour Day?
Was workplace bullying discussed at the last AGM of the QTU?
Not even for a moment?
Why not?
Why were the security guards called when one retired teacher tried to talk about workplace bullying?
Steve Ryan, QTU President, was quoted by the ABC on Saturday June 21, 2008 -
"As an employer, Education Queensland has a responsibility under the Workplace Health and Safety Act, and if any of those responsibilities are being breached then the department certainly does run the risk of being sued for liability."
He said that the Education Department should ensure that QTU members and Queensland students are safe at schools.
And that Queensland teachers are considering legal action over lead contamination in Mount Isa.
The Bad Apple Bullies Webmaster comments :
OK, Steve, if Education Queensland runs the risk of being sued for liability when it is in breach of its responsibilities under the Workplace Health and Safety Act, tell us how many of the 99.8% of Queensland teachers who reported that they had been bullied at school by fellow teachers, principals or parents were given QTU legal advice and support?
Let's have the figures.
Or are bullied teachers all just told that their case is complex and that the QTU does not feel sure that they are being bullied?
How many of those 99.8% of teachers are being driven to breakdown and into ill health retirement?
Former Queensland union boss and now Member for Brisbane Central Grace Grace said that the 2008 Labour Day march in Brisbane was "all about celebration."
"This year it's a celebration of a new government and a new era of workers." said Steve Mason, the president of the Queensland Branch of the Comunication Workers Union,
"Today we're a lot less angry than last year.
"We're showing the warm and fuzzy side of the union movement this year."
Actually, Mr Mason, the Bad Apple Bullies webmaster is still feeling pretty fed up.
She, too, used to march proudly on May Day.
Till she was bullied at work.
And the Queensland Teachers' Union just told her to "accept the things you cannot change".
And the ACTU told her that workplace bullying was endemic in Australia and that unions could not afford to support the numbers of union members who were being bullied.
You have to wonder what there is for Australian union members to celebrate.
What is the point of being in a union if that union passively facilitates workplace bullying?
They union have become part of the problem.
This is the reality for Queensland's teachers.
The Webmaster of Bad Apple Bullies is a Queensland teacher who has been Dealing With The Mob for more than seven years -
When I was bullied in November 2000, the immediate advice of the Queensland Teachers' Union was that I should "accept the things you cannot change".
The QTU organiser told me that there was no hope of justice because the Education Queensland Grievance process did not work, and the organiser had never known a teacher's Grievance to be upheld.
Several other QTU officers later agreed that this was good advice, based on their own long experience with the department.
I could not believe that this was true.
I had spent many, many hours in the local community, lobbying on behalf of the Labor party.
I had always been an active member of the Queensland Teachers' Union.
I believed in the Department of Education and the Queensland Government.
I simply could not believe what I was being told about the Labor Party, the Queensland Teachers' Union, the Department of Education and the Queensland Government.
I believed that I could get justice.
But, seven and a half years later, I realise that the QTU organiser was telling me the truth.
My hope now is that, by exposing the strategies used by Bad Apple Education Queensland administrators and Queensland public servants to bully and mob Queensland teachers, I may be able to shame the Queensland Government into taking action to deal with the problem of workplace bullying in Queensland schools.
To this date, May 11, 2008, I have seen no evidence of any change in the culture.
The documents that I have found under Freedom Of Information (FOI) demonstrate that the Education Queensland Bad Apples who attacked me have developed no insight into their bullying.
They have shown no remorse.
They have made no committment to change.
I have been particularly disgusted by the fact that members and supporters of my local branches of the Labor party did this to me, knowing that it would be very difficult for me, a Labor party activist, to complain about their behaviour- because their attack on me took place during the "run up" to the February 2001 state election.
The people who bullied me are also members of my own union - the Queensland Teachers' Union.
And members of other unions - mainly, I presume, the Queensland Public Sector Union (QPSU) - have either actively participated in the mobbing or passively allowed the mobbing to continue.
So these union members earn their living by (actively or passively) facilitating the abuse of their fellow union members.
I have struggled for many years to believe this situation.
This is not what I was expecting of the Labor party or the Union movement.
Your rights at work - worth fighting for!
Let's deal with the bad apples!
