School staff ban Olympic ticketing

Date: 27 March 2000

SOCOG has released 750,000 Olympic Opportunity tickets for school students, parents and teachers. Unfortunately they didn't think about who would do the organising and paperwork. They just assumed that school administrative staff would pick up workload. And they didn't tell or consult with school administrative staff. Bans have been imposed.

The Public Service Association and its School Administrative and Support Staff members first learned of the ticketing plan when a big feature article, Joining the Action,, was published in the Daily Telegraph.

The article sparked a barrage of phone enquiries to schools. As usual, SAS staff in the school offices had to deal with these unexpected calls.

The plans for booking and allocating the tickets are complex and time-consuming, involving three options, ie, Group Excursion, School Groups, Parents and Families. There are in excess of 160 sessions from which a school can choose. There is no limit to the number of sessions a school can attend.

Work for the school can involve:

• Dealing with enquiries.
• Choosing sessions students wish to attend.
• Determining which students and families attend the sessions.
• Balloting or selecting attendees if more than 50 students, parents or staff apply for a session.
• Sending the ticket order to SOCOG.
• Reallocating attendees if SOCOG cannot fill the requested order.
• Processing payment to SOCOG.
• Collection of money from students and families. There are no refunds. A ticket will have to be paid for, even if the student or family changes their mind about attending.
• Ticket payments; banking of substantially larger than usual amounts of money.
• Liaison with SOCOG.
• Individual receipting for attending the sessions with the students.

This is a potentially significant additional workload for SAS staff at a time when they will be grappling with problems caused by the introduction of GST.

The Department has not provided additional resources for the school office. The Department's view is that "it is no different from a school excursion". The claim is nonsense.

The Department says that involvement by the school and by SAS staff is voluntary. The PSA believes that SAS staff in the school office will inevitably bear the brunt of the workload unless positive action is taken.

PSA delegates for SAS Staff have resolved:

"That a ban be placed on Olympic ticketing in the light of the Department's refusal to allocate extra resources to assist in the organisation of issuing of tickets."

Members are directed to act in accordance with this resolution and:

• Not do any collecting, receipting, processing of payments, or banking of monies in relation to Olympic ticketing.
• Not act as the "contact person".
• Not do any work in relation to the organisation and processing of tickets.
• Not volunteer to supervise students attending a session. (There is a serious problem of duty of care of students).

The Department has suggested that parents can do the organising of Olympic tickets. The PSA agrees.

For further information

Contact:	Fran Collins
Union:	Public Service Association of NSW
Phone:	9220 0946
Email:	fcollins@psa.asn.au
WWW:	http://psa.labor.net.au/

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