Why Victorian Catholic education needs a pay rise
As we prepared for the last round of negotiations for Victorian Catholic schools, our members told us that their priority was tackling the out-of-control workload burden crushing staff in schools.
Alongside stronger regulation of the working week, recognition of additional hours worked, and limits to meeting times, the 2022 Agreement won historic reductions to scheduled class time in Catholic schools.
It's important that we continue to tackle ongoing workload challenges, but after the extraordinary cost of living increases our members have experienced over the life of this Agreement, it’s clear that the focus of upcoming negotiations must be on winning solid pay increases.
We’ve also seen the benchmark for education salaries raised over the last couple of years. In recent Agreement negotiations with Victorian independent schools the IEU has achieved big increases, with the top automatic teacher salary levels in some heading towards $140,000 per year, matched by significant increases to Education Support salaries.
We’ve also seen big increases to education salaries around the country, and in our upcoming campaigns both the IEU and the AEU will push for urgent and well-deserved pay rises to ensure that Victorian teachers, support staff, and school leaders receive fair and competitive wages.
The big pay increases secured in other states since 2023 did not include the significant reductions in scheduled class time achieved in Victorian Catholic schools. These reductions effectively raise the hourly rate of pay for teachers by 6.6–7.5 percent, making them important wins that our interstate colleagues will seek to match in their next rounds of bargaining.
Our plan
The IEU has commissioned respected industrial expert Patrick Lee to work with us on developing a wages policy, based on Australian and international research and salary benchmarks, to give us the solid foundations we need to argue for badly needed pay increases at the bargaining table.
We’ll shortly be surveying all IEU members employed in Victorian Catholic education to ensure that our position at the bargaining table on salaries and other conditions reflect the priorities of the broader membership.
We also know that our ability to win at the bargaining table comes directly from the strength of our membership, so we are striving to ensure that our members are for the first time afforded crucial bargaining rights, including the right to take protected industrial action and seek bargaining assistance from the Fair Work Commission – see here for more information on this.