Opinion: Docking wages of anti-vax teachers vindictive and unnecessary

Most education staff who didn’t meet vaccination requirements have been punished, but now the department wants to take it further. What gives, asks Kylie Lang. VOTE IN OUR POLL

Docking the pay of teachers who refused to comply with now-obsolete vaccination mandates is a bit rich.

The pandemic narrative has changed, yet the state government seems set on retribution.

“Power-crazed”, “vindictive” and “morale-crushing” are other descriptions frustrated educators have shared with me this week.

My view is, and has always been, that staff who refused to meet vaccination deadlines laid out in a public health order last November should face consequences.

They did.

Most were suspended without pay.

Yet now the Education Department wants to take it further.

And this, after the vaccination mandate was lifted on June 30 and unvaxxed teachers were allowed to return to work.

What gives?

Hundreds of teachers and other school staff learned this week, via a letter from a senior bureaucrat, that a portion of their salaries would be docked over 18 weeks, a total amount of $800 to $1730 depending on pay grade.

Haven’t these people already paid for their anti-vax stance by losing months of wages?

Apparently not.

“The disciplinary finding against you is serious,” the letter read.

“It is reasonable for the department, as your employer, to expect that you comply with lawful and reasonable directions.

“Such an expectation is fundamental to the employment relationship, and your failure to comply is damaging to the trust and confidence placed in you.

“Your conduct in failing to comply with the direction posed a risk to the health and safety of your co-workers, students and members of the public, which was mitigated only by the steps taken by the department to suspend you from duty.”

No argument from me here. I agree with all of the above.

But why punish people financially a second time, and without warning?

If fines – which are what pay docking amounts to – had been mooted last year when mandates were announced, that school staff have their first jab by December 17 and second by January 23, then the outcome might have been quite different.

At least people would have known the full repercussions instead of being hit with ad hoc decisions after the fact.

The unvaxxed are now mixing with the vaxxed – not only in schools but in all areas of life as we learn to live with Covid-19 – yet retrospective retribution is being exacted.

Education Minister Grace Grace told dissenters this week they should be grateful they didn’t get sacked.

But what no one has addressed is what’s bubbling just under the surface: the injustice of it all, not only for formerly suspended staff who feel doubly victimised but for vaccinated staff who had to pick up the slack when their colleagues left.

There is also anger that some staff, without medical exemptions, were suspended yet kept all or part of their salaries.

This flies in the face of what Ms Grace said back in January, that if staff didn’t meet the vaccination mandate “they will be stood down without pay to show cause”.

One educator told me the process was “murky”, with some people receiving special treatment and, in the eyes of their colleagues, taking a nice long holiday.

When I asked the Education Department on Thursday to clarify the situation, a spokesperson said:

“From the commencement of the 2022 school year, unvaccinated teachers were suspended with pay, and asked to show cause for why they should not be suspended without pay. Each case, for each teacher, was considered individually and a fair and proper process was followed.

“Unless a teacher had a valid medical exemption, in the majority of cases they were suspended without pay.”

So you can understand the confusion and talk about double standards.

None of this augurs well for a united school year going forward. Instead of docking the pay of teachers who refused to comply with vaccination mandates that no longer exist, the department should focus on supporting all staff to improve outcomes for students – the reason schools exist in the first place.

Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail