Tasmanian Catholic bargaining - time to get serious
Bargaining for a new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement to cover employees in Tasmanian Catholic schools is hitting one big roadblock – the Tasmanian Catholic Office (TCEO) rarely meet, and when they do, they are not prepared.
The IEU bargaining team attempted a constructive meeting again this week with TCEO representatives, but they provided no adequate responses to our Log of Claims, despite promising to do so for months. As a result of this failure, the meeting lasted just 20 minutes.
The TCEO continues to insist on scheduling online meetings with the IEU no more than once a month. We continue to offer to attend their office for more frequent, in-person meetings. The TCEO is happy for school staff to front up to work in person every day but cites COVID safety as an excuse not to meet in person with the IEU negotiating team. It’s not good enough.
Despite their lack of preparation for this week’s ‘meeting’, the TCEO found time to lay out some claims of their own. These included a bid to extend the current school year by five days, another requiring teachers to be at school half an hour before first duties and a third which seems intended to make it easier to compulsorily transfer staff between schools.
The TCEO has opposed nearly all claims made by the IEU, including those around wage parity with government schools and reducing face to face teaching time in Catholic primary schools, which is currently one hour a week more than it is in the government sector.
It’s worth contrasting the approach of the TCEO with that of other Catholic employers. In Victoria, where the IEU is currently negotiating new Agreements for staff in Catholic schools detailed, respectful, in-person meetings are being held twice a week.
The TCEO is apparently setting up some kind of Enterprise Agreement Portal ostensibly for the purpose of gaining input from their employees in the Enterprise Bargaining process. This wastes more time since they already have the input of members via the Log of Claims.
When (or rather if) the portal ever opens, we suggest IEU members might urge their employer to get serious and proceed with good faith negotiations with the union pronto. They could tell the TCEO to take our Log of Claims seriously and agree to a realistic meeting schedule. The TCEO should be doing all it can to get a fair deal done as soon as possible instead of squeezing even more out of a workforce already giving so much.
The IEU will of course continue to campaign for a fair deal for all staff working in Tasmanian Catholic schools. We know that the work of education staff gets more complex and challenging every year and we will always fight to maintain and improve the conditions they need to get the job done.
We will also push the TCEO to take a more serious and respectful approach to negotiations. After all that staff in schools have been through, monthly two-hour online meetings to negotiate a new Agreement just do not cut it. They’re an insult.
IEU Organisers will be out in schools in force in Term 2 to talk about these issues and to build pressure on the TCEO to meaningfully engage in negotiations towards a fair outcome for hardworking employees of Tasmanian Catholic Education.