Today’s Crikey has an interesting snippet:

I have been told that some Victorian state school principals get a percentage bonus if they can make staff savings within the school. For example, if a teacher goes on long service leave, and instead of being replaced by another teacher, they are replaced by the teachers within the school (as extras or in-lieus, which cost the school nothing), then the principal gets a percentage of the money that would have gone to hiring the teacher. My current principal apparently got a five figure bonus last year from this. It may just be Victorian Education Dept policy, or it may be a school based one, I’m not too sure.

Speaking as one of the poor (and regularly striking) underpaid teachers, I think it stinks to high heaven. That the school administration makes these decisions … based on personal profit, not educational lines, is wrong. That this is hidden from most staff is even worse. Incidentally, the feeling among many Victorian state teachers is either: a) We should be taking more comprehensive action (like the nurses last year) to achieve our goals, ie. full day strikes, but we are too bound by the old workchoices legislation. b) We should be withdrawing our support and involvement in the extra-curricular activities we do. The only way the parents can see how under pressure we are.

Teachers have been against performance-based pay for ages, saying how it’s good in theory but impractical and indefinable in practice. But this is evidence that performance-based pay is possible: just work your way up to principal, screw your colleagues over, save the department a fat wad of cash and walk away with enough for a new plasma TV and a trip to Fiji.

On another note, what should The Ed be withdrawing or withholding to give added teeth to the strike? I suggest he refuses to give out any stale Minties, lend any colour pencils and post any more Fleshlight jokes until Pike coughs up his 10 per cent.