Woodleigh College staff triumph in pay fight

Staff at Woodleigh College won a resounding, long-overdue victory in October, when they reached agreement on their four-year long battle for pay rises. 

"We agreed to a 4% increase for the general staff scale in the first year and then 2.5% for the next two years. Teachers will get three 2.5% annual increases. There is a possibility of a further 1% bonus this year if the school has a surplus of $500,000," said Organiser Earl James. 

“Members voted for a wage freeze during the first lockdown in 2020 when the school received millions in JobKeeper and made some staff redundant. IEU members are very reasonable people but when pushed and offered an unreasonable deal they will fight back…Ultimately, it was a good result all round,” said James. 

He called the union member’s response as “very solid, united and strong”. Over 90% voted of staff had voted for protected industrial action after negotiations dragged on despite the school recording a surplus during 2020. 

IEU General Secretary Deb James said staff at Woodleigh had “bent over backwards” to educate and support their students through the pandemic and she was “delighted” that following a successful industrial action ballot the school was prepared to meet staff’s reasonable demands. 

“After the extraordinary efforts of all school staff over these last two years, we expect more than words of gratitude – we want to see employers offering decent salaries and making a real effort to deal with the huge workload crises across our schools.  

“Last year we agreed to delay negotiations in many independent schools, out of respect for the fact that it was a period of real financial uncertainty. It’s clear now though that the vast majority of non-government schools have got through the worst of the pandemic in good financial shape, and it is now time to catch up and to properly value the efforts of hard-working school staff.” 

She said Woodleigh’s staff had hoped to reach an agreement without resorting to industrial action. 

However, the final offer of a pay increase for only one year with no guarantees of future increases was unanimously rejected by members. 

“Members want workload to be addressed in this round of bargaining,” Ms James said.  

“Overworked staff are frustrated they can’t get on with doing the job they want to do – teaching, leading, and bringing out the best in all their students.” 

Actions that staff voted to take if negotiations hadn’t been finalised included bans or limits on making or receiving phone calls, bans on attending meetings before and after classes, on writing student reports, on doing yard duty, and on reading emails, as well as potential stop work action of up to 24 hours. 

An affirmative vote averaging over 90% in the protected action ballot showed the resolve of staff.