IEU responds to employer 'offer'
After months of negotiations between the IEU and the VCEA and with the case to determine your rights to access fair bargaining rights due to start tomorrow, the Catholic employers dropped an offer on Friday they say represents a fair deal for staff in Victorian Catholic schools.
There’s a fair bit of detail to work through but our initial analysis says the offer is a backward step on several important conditions IEU members have won over decades.
Importantly, in government schools staff are considering a deal which enhances their current conditions – rather than trying to tear them down.
Here’s some of the IEU’s key concerns with the employer’s offer:
Workload. They want teachers to have less time for preparation and assessment by increasing directed time to allow ‘collaboration’. On top of that, secondary school assemblies will no longer be counted as scheduled class time meaning they will no longer be factored into teacher loads.
ES overtime dismantled. The offer slashes the current ES TIL and overtime provisions, meaning ES can be directed to attend staff meetings, parent-teacher nights and open days in exchange for time off when the employer chooses to give it to them.
TIL and camp allowance. Employers are showing their refusal to work with the union to make TIL better. They’re offering a camp allowance that for many is barely half that offered by the government. They want to tear down TIL and go back to the bad old days of unregulated overtime for teachers.
Teacher attendance on site. Employers want to limit the time teachers are able to be absent from school when they don’t have scheduled duties by adding language to the Agreement like ‘occasionally and in appropriate circumstances’ subject to the ‘operational requirements’ of the school (whatever they are !).
Pay. The offer is vague in many respects with no detail on changes to classification. It matches many elements of the government offer but falls well short of the IEU claim.
Professional practice days. Government teachers and ES get to choose the focus of what they do for 4 PP days a year. Under the offer, Catholic staff get to choose 2 days. The other 2 days are employer directed.
‘Technical changes’ to increment dates, leave formulas and FTE rounding all seem to work in the employer’s favour. Part-timers could be hundreds of dollars worse off as will those on fixed-term contracts.
Nothing on safety. The employers are refusing to offer things that cost them nothing – but can cost their staff dearly. There’s nothing on better protocols on dealing with student behaviour or students with high needs.
The IEU is determined to get a fair deal, so clearly we will be pushing back hard on elements of this offer while at the same time putting forward our own IEU claims for inclusion in a fairly negotiated single Agreement covering all staff in Victorian Catholic education.
There’s plenty of work to do and we will not delay. IEU members need and deserve improved wages and conditions as quickly as possible and we all need to fight to make that happen.
