Victorian Catholic Bargaining: turning up the heat
Member frustration at employer inaction leads to rallies across the state.
‘You can grill them, you can fry them, or you can roast them with cherries on top in a tinsel decorated ergonomic induction pan, but they’re still sausages.’
The sausages in this case being the intransigent MACS employer group. No matter how you look at it, they haven’t done much this year. They still seem in no hurry to complete a deal to improve the workloads of education staff and deliver wage parity with Victorian government and Sale Diocese schools.
So, we could have just reprinted the bargaining report from the last term’s edition of The Point, right?
No.
Because members have been unstinting, and participating in actions intended to wake up the MACS group and get them moving in bargaining. Whether frying, grilling, or roasting, they’ve been turning up the heat!
Also increasing the pressure was a breakthrough in the Sale Diocese negotiations, which delivered an in-principle deal that has been resoundingly endorsed by staff across the Diocese.
That draft deal entrenched a raft of significant measures targeting workload intensification, better paid parental leave, salary increases, classification adjustments, and provisions to make Consultative Committees more democratic and effective to safeguard the gains made in the Agreement.
While the draft Agreement was being finalised in Sale, IEU members ratcheted up the campaign for MACS to achieve the same outcome.
IEU bargaining team with wall of report cards in the background
Firstly, thousands of members across the state filled in their ‘Report Cards’ on the performance of MACS in bargaining (a unanimous FAIL). The immense variety and creativity of these report cards helped to keep the focus on the lived reality of members, and gave us great content to amplify our cause on social media – see for example the picture of our suitably disgruntled bargaining team in front of a ‘Wall of Shame’ of report cards which resonated strongly on social media.
These report cards have since been ceremoniously presented by members to MACS and to the leadership of the Dioceses of Ballarat and Sandhurst.
On the first day of Term 3, IEU members at Santa Maria College in Northcote gathered before school in a local cafe for a briefing on the failure of MACS negotiators to constructively bargain, before proudly gathering in union colours in front of the school.
The sub-branch endorsed a motion asking their school leadership to direct Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools negotiators to agree to the IEU’s reasonable claims around workloads, salaries and conditions, and expressing deep concern that a failure to do so undermines the sustainability of the profession and has a real impact on both students and staff.
Staff at Mackillop Education in Geelong
In late July, staff at Mackillop Education in Geelong also voted unanimously on a similar motion expressing their ‘extreme frustration’ at the lack of progress in negotiations for a new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement covering their school.
Actions featuring similar words occurred at schools all over the map, from Sydenham to Shepparton, and from Melbourne to Myrtleford.
Members in Bendigo and Ballarat generated significant media coverage from local newspapers and television by meeting at Catholic Education Offices to hand over report cards to employer representatives. Braving icy winter weather, their solidarity and good-natured determination was inspirational.
One of the spokespeople most widely contacted by the media for those events was Peter Joyce, the Rep at St Patrick’s College. He wasn’t as constrained by endless educational duties as others – because he was home on COVID isolation!
ABC radio and internet news, WIN TV news, the Ballarat Courier and the Bendigo Advertiser were keen to cover those Central Victorian rallies which upped the pressure on MACS employers to bargain seriously.
Members at St Joseph’s Ferntree Gully
The following Monday, members at St Joseph’s Ferntree Gully kicked off their working week by staging a walk-in and presenting their motion to the principal in front of all staff. Their letter to their principal emphasised that the arguments the IEU is having are not with their school or school leadership but ‘rather with the employer bargaining representatives at the table’.
On 10 August, the Herald Sun featured a lead article on the upcoming rally at MACS HQ , the member-driven action in Shepparton received print, online and live radio coverage, and in Melbourne, General Secretary Deb James had a prime-time stint on the 3AW drive radio program.
The centrepiece of this phase of campaigning was the rally held at James Goold House on Thursday 11 August.
All the while, the IEU bargaining team have kept up the pressure at the bargaining table for the wins our members (and our schools) so badly need. The solidarity and camaraderie exhibited by members all over Victoria have given strength to their arm, and is making it increasingly clear to employer Reps that the pressure for a fair outcome is growing by the day.
This article was originally published in The Point V12 No3