It’s an unprecedented step, made necessary, IEU Victoria Tasmania said, by “the Victorian Catholic Education Authority’s refusal to negotiate our next sector-wide Agreement in a manner which would provide staff with the basic bargaining rights which are granted to their colleagues interstate and in government education, and in the vast majority of Australian workplaces”.
These include the right to ballot for and take protected industrial action and the right to seek Good Faith Bargaining Orders or other assistance from the Fair Work Commission in the case of a breakdown of negotiations – all rights essential to fair bargaining, the union said.
It said a majority of staff working for each of the 24 employers has now signed a Statement of Support indicating their support for fair bargaining processes covering their salaries and conditions under a Single Interest Authorisation.
David Brear, general secretary of the Independent Education Union Victoria Tasmania, said the union lodged the application because a majority of staff in Victorian Catholic education have told their union representatives that they want the same basic bargaining rights as their colleagues in other states.
“They want to know that when their union sits down with the employers to negotiate, we can do so without one arm tied behind our back, Brear said.
“Our application today covers 24 employers, and it is our intention to win majority support in the other 12 so that we can start fair bargaining for one Agreement covering all staff in Victorian Catholic education.”
The are more than 33,000 staff in Victoria’s Catholic schools.
Brear said IEU Victoria Tasmania had been ready to commence bargaining since early September, and that the union wanted to get started as soon as it could to “do so on a level playing field”.
“Our claims are ambitious – but they need to be, because Catholic education in Victoria is falling far behind,” Brear explained.
“There’s a crisis in schools right now – staff are undervalued, overworked and burning out, and that urgently needs to be addressed, not only for the sake of staff, but for our students and the sustainability of our sector.”
Brear claimed what thousands of staff are telling the union is that “their employers so-called ‘offer’ just doesn’t cut it”.
“The VCEA could at any stage agree to Single Interest bargaining, put an end to this farce, and get productive negotiations underway.
“Enough of the games, enough of the delays. Let’s get started on fair negotiations - now!”
Staff in Victorian Catholic education, IEU Victoria Tasmania said in a statement, “have seen time and time again that the denial of these rights leaves them weaker at the bargaining table and results in lengthy and unnecessary delays”.
“Despite the fact that Catholic education Agreements generally run to the same timeline as Agreements in Victorian government education, in the last round of bargaining staff in Catholic education had to wait a full year longer than government school staff to receive the benefits of their new Agreement, because they lacked the legal right to undertake an industrial campaign to put pressure on their employers for a timely resolution,” the statement read.
The union said “no reason of any substance” has been given by the VCEA for their refusal to agree to an SIA.
It said that in a desperate attempt to prevent their staff having access to basic bargaining rights, the VCEA had also taken “the unprecedented step of putting out a purported pre-negotiation ‘offer’ directly to employees in a blatant attempt to use a short-sighted superficial offer to convince staff to give up on the campaign for industrial fairness”.
“We condemn the VCEA’s campaign of misinformation, their deeply concerning efforts to impede IEU workplace Representatives, and their misguided attempts to undermine fair bargaining through their deeply inadequate ‘offer’ to staff,” the statement read.
