IEU General Secretary David Brear: The IEU is united for fairness
As our colleagues in Victorian government schools stop work as part of their campaign for significant improvements to wages and conditions, the IEU continues to fight for the right of staff in Victorian Catholic schools to do the same.
There are some really significant issues at play here. Most urgently, staff in Victorian Catholic schools need a pay rise. Big increases in other states since the last Agreement was finalised mean we’ve slipped behind – not by a little but by a lot.
Schools continue to struggle to attract and retain staff, with workload, workplace safety, and limited job flexibility driving high turnover and burnout.
The IEU’s Log of Claims targets these issues, seeking improvements to wages and conditions that will make a big difference to staff working in schools – and also to their students.
Members have long sought recognition for the workload of preparing individual learning plans, yet class sizes in Victorian Catholic schools remain too high, with staff responsible for up to 29 students each.
Processes around student management remain inconsistent with both students and staff still exposed to unacceptable risk when there are ways things can be managed better.
Schools remain largely inflexible with work-from-home arrangements, even for tasks and times where remote work could be managed.
The Log of Claims is ambitious, but it needs to be. Wages and conditions need to take a major step forward and the time for that to happen is now.
IEU members know that to win this fight we need strong bargaining rights – that’s why the Single Interest Authorisation campaign is so important. Unlike our colleagues in government schools everywhere and in Catholic schools in every other Australian state, we are denied the right to take protected industrial action.
The employers however remain determined to block our campaign for fairness. They will continue to dress up their objections as something else, but their real aim is to deny their staff the power to influence bargaining.
Last year IEU members gathered an incredible 19,000 Statements of Support for SIA across Victorian Catholic education, which we are convinced represents the majority of staff. Predictably, the VCEA threw down another road block, but we continue to fight for fair bargaining rights for all Catholic school staff.
The VCEA should consent to a Single Interest Authorisation (we are yet to hear a single even vaguely compelling reason for their refusal to do so) yet they remain fixated on denying basic rights to hard-working staff and delaying these critical negotiations.
The fight will continue, and so will our regular meetings with employer representatives to advance much-needed improvements to salaries and conditions in Victorian Catholic education. As we go to print, we have finished presented and explained all 101 points from our democratically developed Log of Claims and we’re now awaiting their responses.
Meanwhile, IEU Reps from Tasmanian Catholic education recently endorsed their Log of Claims. Another tough negotiation is expected. Last time, agreement was only reached om the eve of industrial action, following years of talks. We expect Tasmanian employers may attempt to revisit contentious issues, including forced staff transfers, which the IEU will strongly resist.
As ACTU Secretary Sally McManus reminded IEU Reps at our recent training day, we win campaigns by building strong networks that can be ‘lit up’ when needed – and the campaigns we run are not just about ourselves, they are about opening the door for others and the legacy we leave for those who follow.