Open Letter to Victorian Catholic Employers and Principals
This letter was sent to all Victorian Catholic Employers and Principals (except in the Diocese of Sale) on 28 October.
Dear Principal / Employer
I write to you with very deep concerns about the failure to progress negotiations for a new Agreement covering employees in Victorian Catholic schools and education offices outside of the Diocese of Sale.
The last Agreement expired in April 2021. Here we are 18 months later, and the next school year is in sight, but a new Agreement is not. Not only has this left around 25,000 staff uncertain about their conditions and increasingly feeling undervalued and ignored by employers, but it also leaves Principals unable to plan with certainty for 2023 – an absurd and deeply unfair situation at this time of year.
Simply put: you are being gravely let down by employer representatives at the bargaining table.
Agreements covering staff in all Victorian government schools and Catholic schools in the Diocese of Sale were finalised many months ago. New industry standards have been set – yet in a time of crippling teacher shortages, employer representatives refuse to meet these standards, making recruitment and retention of staff even more difficult.
The last useful bargaining discussion was on 17 August 2022. Since then, Catholic Education representatives have not advanced a single suggestion on how to resolve the outstanding issues. They have sought to portray the IEU as preventing progress, yet we have done everything we can to address employer concerns and continue productive discussions. Back in July, we responded to concerns about staff shortages by offering to explore alternative approaches, such as a paid allowance for secondary teachers prepared to take ‘extra’ classes over and above scheduled class time limits. These proposals were summarily dismissed by employer representatives.
In frustration, we took Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS) to conciliation at the Fair Work Commission on 19 October. In front of a Commissioner, MACS representatives confirmed that they had committed to making a new offer by Tuesday 25 October. On 25 October, Ms Alicia Tuohey (General Manager, Employee Relations) informed us that MACS had no new offer to make and was not prepared to face the Commission again.
While employers announced on 3 October that they would pay increases (almost) matching government schools, this has been marked by confusion, with a continuing lack of clarity around how and to whom this will apply nearly a month later. Other important benefits, including improved paid parental leave and superannuation on parental leave, are in place across most Victorian schools but are being denied to your staff.
While your representatives have been needlessly delaying negotiations, annual inflation has reached levels well in excess of the upcoming salary increases for most staff. Up until now, we have not sought salary increases above those won in government and Sale Catholic schools, both because the scope of this Agreement is well beyond short-term inflation spikes, but also because we accept that the critical aspects of the VGS and Sale Agreements are the long-overdue efforts to tackle critical workload issues.
However, we simply cannot endorse a deal which fails to offer industry-standard workload conditions - and furthermore, we are convinced that it would have no prospect of approval through the required employee ballot. If employer representatives do not share this conviction, then we invite them to put it to the vote – while in our view this would be a regrettable waste of time and resources, it may be that this is the only way to demonstrate to employer representatives how unviable their proposals are and how out-of-touch they are with the needs of their own schools and staff.
As you will be well aware, IEU members in your schools share our increasing frustration at the delays. Staff feel undervalued, and furious that the extraordinary lengths they went to through the pandemic and school lockdowns to provide continuity of education and care for students is worth so little at the bargaining table. While our campaigning has intensified over the course of the year, until now there has been a genuine effort to minimise the disruption on students and school communities. However, it’s increasingly clear that if they continue to be ignored, our members will call on us to further amplify this campaign.
With no time now left to reach an Agreement before the 2023 school year starts, those trying to run schools are owed an apology by their representatives at the bargaining table. I encourage you to contact your employer representatives to urge them to come to their senses and agree to match industry standard conditions so we can get this deal done quickly.
I also invite principals and individual employers to speak directly with us: as demonstrated by our constructive negotiations with the Diocese of Sale, we are ready and willing to discuss a timely resolution to these matters either at an employer or individual school level.
Yours sincerely
Debra James
General Secretary
Independent Education Union Victoria Tasmania