Union Songs

Dear Public

[to the tune of 'Murphy']

Dear Pu-ob-lic, we think that you should listen to our plight
For every time we stop our work we just can't sleep at night,
Our worries for your children are genuine and clear
But we just can't accept a wooper salary cut this year.

So listen now to understand why we are here today,
Barr and Stanhope push us now to take a cut in pay
They offer no real increase but ask much sacrifice
Dear Public if you have ideas then offer them advice.

Now this dispute began for us so many months ago
But for all our troubles there is not a lot to show
The government's been guided by a bunch of treasury hacks
Resulting in decisions made without some basic facts.

To start with they believe we only work from nine to three
They want to increase class time for him and her and me
They won't consider planning, preparing and reports
They simply foist this on us knowing teachers are good sorts

Their first offer was 3 per cent with 10 per cent job loss
All of us rejected that for better or for woss
They followed fast with 4 per cent and cuts to jobs and more
Then yet another backward step to cut our new super.

We're running round in circles now as they refuse to talk
They've lied to us so often that we've no choice but to walk
We'd really like to end this soon and to get on with our jobs
But as you see we're really stuck just dealing with these yobs

So now we hope you understand why we are here today,
Barr and Stanhope push us now to take a cut in pay
They offer no real increase but ask much sacrifice
Dear Public if you have ideas then offer them advice.

Notes

Many thanks to Mike Fitzgerald for permission to add this song to the Union Songs web collection

"I am an Organiser for AEU in ACT. We had an extended dispute with Jon Stanhope and Andrew Barr (ACT Chief Minister and Minister of Education) though out much of 2006. We organized many stop work meetings (with 500-3500 attendees, depending on the type of stop work meeting) and sang most of the following songs, en masse, outside the ACT Legislative Assembly. The dispute was sent to private arbitration and settled when it was clear to the ACT govt. that the members were becoming energised by the stop works and numbers were increasing over the months, not decreasing, and that they quite a few members knew the songs so well that they could sing the songs without their song sheets!

Some songs; words and music written by Mike Fitzgerald. Some songs; words written to traditional / popular tunes by Bill Book and Mike Fitzgerald"

Find more works by Mike Fitzgerald in this collection

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union songs..........a selection by mark gregory