The VCEA has put an offer on the table. It contains significant salary improvements – but with many strings attached.
We want every staff member to know what’s at stake. Our “Dirty Dozen” countdown will focus on twelve key concerns, drawing on nearly 5000 member responses to our recent survey as well as the IEU bargaining team’s analysis.
Catholic employers have promised pay parity with government schools, but are holding backpay to ransom by making it conditional on reaching agreement in principle by 15 November. Withholding the backpay needed to match government school earnings would break the parity won three decades ago. Employers can and should guarantee full backpay while properly negotiating around these concerns.
There are still too many backward steps and unresolved conditions for us to simply sign up. In our recent survey, over 75% of respondents favoured either continuing negotiations beyond the deadline if needed while insisting on full backpay, or reaching agreement only with firm written guarantees protecting outstanding conditions.
We’ll add each new issue to this article as the series progresses. Please check back regularly and share this page with colleagues.
#1: More meetings and less time to prepare for teachers
From next year, Victorian government schools will have a 40-hour annual cap on required teacher meetings and 40 additional hours reserved for teacher-controlled professional work. The Catholic offer provides neither protection, meaning teachers could be required to attend up to 40 more hours of meetings each year than their colleagues in government schools.
We all know that teachers need more time for planning, marking and assessment during the working week. More directed meetings push that work into evenings and weekends. The employers’ failure to recognise this erodes the value of a pay rise and leaves teachers without equivalent protections for their time.
In our recent survey, 63% of teachers answering the workload question preferred the government arrangement: a 40-hour annual meeting cap and 40 additional hours of class focus time.
The IEU has been seeking a clear annual meeting cap, protected preparation time and recognition of the additional work actually required.
