Strathcona staff act to achieve a great deal

Teachers and teaching assistants at Strathcona Girls Grammar School have taken protected industrial action to achieve more sustainable workloads in a new Enterprise Agreement.

Interim agreement on a deal was reached on 5 May, just before a scheduled one-hour stop work meeting was due to commence.

General Secretary David Brear attended an on-site meeting, at which he praised Strathcona members, Reps and union staff for their determination and persistence in campaigning, which tripled membership at the school.

‘A last-ditch meeting between the IEU and school representatives got the deal over the line. Not only did we sign up new members, but we’ve also shown members what collective action is and that if they act in union they can get a great result. Great work by everyone!’

It is uncommon for staff at such a prestigious and well-funded school to take industrial action, but our members reached their breaking point due to the school’s continued inaction on workload intensification.

In early April, over 84% of staff voted ‘No’ to an employer deal they felt didn’t address their needs and concerns. Over 100 teachers and teaching assistants implemented work bans, including refusing to attend assemblies. They also wore union T-shirts at work, added industrial campaign messages to their email signatures and handed out flyers to parents during a 20-minute stop-work meeting at a school crosscountry event.

Over 100 teachers and teaching assistants implemented work bans, including refusing to attend assemblies.

After successfully applying for a Protected Action Ballot Order (PABO), IEU members at Strathcona voted 98% in favour of taking industrial action. The union then had the option to commence strike action, and members voted to escalate industrial action in Term 2 if needed.

The prospect of a one-hour strike had a powerful effect, ending eight months of negotiations. Major sticking points included enforceable limits to scheduling teaching time, ensuring time for preparation and marking, and the right to access arbitration in the case of a workplace dispute and wages.

David said: ‘Workload limits are critical to the sustainability of the work educators do – so, of course, they need to be expressed in an enforceable Agreement rather than being relegated to policies that can be changed by the employer on a whim.’

Salaries were also an issue.

‘Strathcona is a high-fee school, but the wage offer on the table just didn’t cut it for staff living through a cost-ofliving crisis. The IEU has recently won significant wage increases for staff in a number of independent schools, and we will be campaigning hard for significant uplift to salaries across non-government education in 2026 and beyond,’ David said.

Unlike a growing number of other independent schools, Strathcona had no limits on scheduled teaching and preparation time.

Herald Sun coverage of the Strathcona dispute tacitly acknowledged the IEU’s ground-breaking workload measures negotiated in the Catholic sector:

‘The dispute comes as some of Victoria’s most prestigious private schools are facing increased pressure to give teachers workload relief after Catholic sector educators received a reduction in teaching time of one hour a week in 2023 and half an hour in 2024.’

As IEU Rep Brendan Nicholls commented on Facebook, ‘This is the kind of action members are keen to take as, sadly, it’s often the only thing that brings about timely and fair outcomes’.

Drafting of the Agreement is underway, and members will soon get the chance to vote for it formally.