Agreement Mythbusters!
There’s a LOT to unpack in this proposed Agreement. Here are a few of the most common concerns we are hearing about the proposed Agreement, with our responses:
“We should oppose this Agreement because salaries don’t keep up with inflation.”
Since these salaries were negotiated the cost of living has risen much faster than anyone had predicted, and faster than the salaries of most staff to be covered by this Agreement (with some exceptions, such as some Education Support staff at the very bottom of the scale). This of course has also been the case for most workers in Australia and many other parts of the world over the last 18 months.
There are some important points of context to keep in mind, though.
We have never sought to peg salaries to inflation. If we had done so over the last two decades, a top of the scale teacher would be over $20,000 a year worse off. While the salary rates in the Teachers Award have risen significantly due to increases to the minimum wage and our national campaigning, the Award-incremental teacher scale currently ranges from $63,842 to $88,337, a long way behind our union-won scale which ranges from $75,726 to $112,333.
Teacher salary vs inflation since 2003
Base salary increases for most teachers over the life of this Agreement are 9.3% plus 4% in additional allowance payments. This is higher for graduate teachers, and significantly higher for the lower levels of the Education Support staff scale.
The big investment in this Agreement is in workload reduction: this has been our focus because for years, members have been telling us that this should be our top priority. Leaving aside the other workload improvements, the reduction to scheduled class time alone means a big increase to the effective rate of pay per hour in the classroom. For a secondary teacher, the reduction from 20 hours of teaching per week in 2022 to 18.5 in 2024 represents a 7.5% increase in the rate paid per hour of teaching, on top of the 6% actual salary increase and additional 2% in allowances they will have received by the start of 2024 (with a further 3% in increases and 2% in bonuses to follow). This will be particularly beneficial to part time teachers: for example, a part-time primary teacher at the top of the salary scale taking ad-hoc additional hours will see their rates for these increase by 23% from $103 at the start of 2023 to $127 in July 2025.
Next year, we’ll be turning our attention to the next Agreement, and will again do widespread consultation and surveying of members. It may well be that after this shocking period of inflation, the top priority shifts back from workloads to salaries – if this is the case, then this will be our priority at the bargaining table then.
In the meantime, the only way to lock in the salary increases AND the workload improvements won in this Agreement is to ensure that it gets voted up!
Click here for more information about the salary outcomes in the proposed Agreement.
“Implementation of this Agreement is at the discretion of individual schools – there is no consistency.”
It’s certainly true that the ‘pre-implementation’ phase of this Agreement over the first half of 2023 has been challenging and that different workplaces have had different approaches. This is largely because the Agreement has not legally come into force and unfortunate employer delays in drafting led to confusion in some workplaces.
Make no mistake though: this Agreement brings in much clearer regulation and protections than any previous Agreement. It will result in more fairness and consistency across our sector, less ‘wiggle room’ for interpretation, and stronger Consultative Committees to ensure that implementation is transparent, effective and meets the key stated objective of better management of workloads.
“There’s no point to Time in Lieu if it is used against an early end to the school year.”
Historically, many Catholic secondary schools have finished the working year earlier than the gazetted dates in recognition of the additional unpaid work performed by teachers throughout the year. This may have ‘balanced out’ once upon a time, but over the last couple of decades we’ve seen out-of-hours expectations of teachers increase, while in many cases their finish day has been gradually moved later and later. Based on our surveying of teachers (93% of whom report a recent ‘drastic’ increase in workloads), we don’t believe that this arrangement balances out any more, and that stronger regulation of hours will be beneficial for teachers.
The outcomes (negotiated by better trained and better empowered Consultative Committees) will differ school by school: where out-of-hours expectations are high or where the finish date is close the end of the gazetted school year, there will be an immediate gain from this. In others, where this is not the case, there may not be an immediate obvious change – but we will have laid a defence against the ‘workload creep’ that we have seen over recent years.
No teacher should end up having to work a longer year than existing custom and practice in their workplace because of these changes. If it means no change to the end of the year, then this is because directed out-of-hours work has been counted and managed over the course of the year – in itself a win in terms of fairness and transparency.
One model that many schools have already agreed to through their consultative procedures is to have teachers finish a certain number of days before the end of the gazetted school year regardless of their TIL balance, with individual negotiations with those who have a higher accrued balance about their additional time off (or payment in lieu).
Importantly, most Catholic primary schools and some secondaries have not had the historical advantage of a significantly earlier finish to the school year, and these changes will ensure fairness and equity across our sector.
Click here for our Time in Lieu explainer
“Employers can ‘bank’ time each week by not using their ‘third hour’ outside of attendance time until it adds up to a whole additional day of work.”
There are several reasons that this should not happen.
First: As is made clear in the employers’ implementation guides, the effective management of TIL involves three steps, in the following order:
1. Plan & approve
2. Accrue
3. Acquit.
There may be some instances where it is appropriate for acquittal to occur before accrual (for example meeting-free weeks in advance of an evening school event), but these should be the exception rather than the rule.
Second: It is the responsibility of the employer to ensure efficient and effective utilisation of the three employer-directed hours which fall outside of the school day. Along with meetings, directed professional development and compliance training, these three hours encompass all other directed work adjacent to the seven-hour day including before- & after-school yard/bus/gate duties or other student supervision, PSGs/parent meetings, directed collaboration and before-school briefings. Realistically, this just doesn’t leave time for substantial ‘banking’.
Third: The Agreement is clear that Time in Lieu planning must occur in advance through the Consultative Committee. There may be some specific circumstances in individual schools where some degree of ‘banking’ makes good sense and is negotiated at the Consultative Committee, but where it is to the detriment of staff it should not be agreed to.
Click here for our ‘30 + 8 Model’ explainer