Victorian Catholic bargaining impasse continues

It’s nearly the end of the (school) year, and the bargaining impasse in the Victorian Catholic sector continues.

The IEU has been negotiating with Victorian Catholic employers for over two years on a new Agreement, despite such deals being finalised long ago with Sale Diocese Catholic schools and in the state government sector.

That glacial progress has become the prime example of how the current industrial relations system fails workers. That’s why IEU General Secretary Deb James and Rep Heather Macardy addressed the Senate Committee Hearing into the Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill, revealing the toll of drawn-out negotiations on education staff.

Negotiations are continuing but the constant delays on the part of employer bargaining representatives are beyond frustrating for our overworked and exhausted members, who have gone above and beyond all expectations to keep their schools afloat and their students educated during the pandemic.

The inability of employer representatives to respond to proposals put forward by the IEU in a timely and constructive manner has strangled progress and left schools without the guidance they need to plan for 2023.

This week, The Age reported that the impasse was a “nightmare” for schools trying to plan for 2023.

Marco Di Cesare, principal of Melbourne boys’ school Marcellin College, said: “We’re all frustrated. We just need the agreement to hurry up.”

Darren Egberts, president of the Principals Association of Victorian Catholic Secondary Schools told The Age that teachers in the Catholic system “deserved the same benefits as those in the state system, and to be compensated for the increased demands on the profession”.

While tentative agreement has been reached around many important areas, nothing is enforceable until the whole document is finalised and put to an all-staff ballot for endorsement. 

Key issues yet to be resolved include fair access to time in lieu or overtime payment for required out-of-hours work, elimination of the 15 hours of unpaid ‘extra’ teaching hours required of secondary teachers, and better consultation procedures to ensure that this new Agreement is properly and fairly implemented.

There are a number of other matters in which the employer’s position simply doesn’t meet industry standards, such as monthly payment of superannuation and efforts to ensure that part-time employees get a fair spread of hours. 

Deb James is urging employers to do what is necessary to reach an in-principle agreement by the end of the year. She says continued delays are imposing “further, deeply unnecessary uncertainty and angst on their own staff.” 

“While their colleagues in government schools and Sale Diocese Catholic schools have had months to plan for 2023, staff in other Victorian Catholic schools are looking down the barrel of a new school year without clarity around their basic working conditions.

“It’s a nightmare for schools trying to plan timetables and class allocations, and it is immensely frustrating for principals and school leaders trying to recruit and retain staff in a time of unprecedented teacher shortages.

“We’ve offered to explore compromise positions, but we can’t agree to a deal which fails to tackle the workload crisis in schools. We cannot stand by and allow truly alarming rates of burnout and exhaustion to continue. We want our schools to be first-rate workplaces, which cannot be the case while staff feel undervalued and feel like their goodwill is being taken advantage of.”

IEU members at St Monica’s Epping make their feelings known.

Deb says staff are “utterly fed up”.

Because current broken IR laws deny IEU members the right to take protected industrial action, they’ve come up with a range of creative ways to show their employers they need action on workloads with the No More Freebies campaign.

The No More Freebies campaign is a way for members to say “no” to all the additional, unpaid work that schools have become so reliant on.

But Deb says education staff don’t want to be campaigning.

“They want to be shown some respect by their employer, and they want to get on with their core work: supporting and educating students.

“But they are at their wit’s end and desperately require urgent action to ensure they have real workplace improvements to look forward to in the New Year.”