Victory for the Independent Education Union

April 19, 2000
Issue 

BY JOHN GAUCI

A comprehensive agreement between the Catholic Commission for Employment Relations (CCER) and the Independent Education Union (IEU) was reached on April 14.

The agreement applies to all Catholic dioceses and relevant Catholic independent schools and is a significant gain on the initial offer made by the CCER. The CCER told teachers in Catholic schools to accept 2% from January, that there would not be a government-funded back payment and that an agreement could not be reached before an agreement was reached in the NSW government sector.

The IEU was able to achieve a 4% increase from April 3 for all teachers and 2% salary payment, back-dated to July 1 (or the date of appointment) will apply to all full-time, part-time and temporary teachers still currently employed. There will be further salary increases of 3% on July 1, 2001, 4% on July 1, 2002, and 5% on January 1, 2003.

The agreement was reached even though there is no settlement in the government sector. There were no trade offs.

Long-service leave has been extended from 1.9 to two weeks per annum to provide for an extra week paid long service over a 10 year period. While maternity leave has been reduced and even extinguished in many industries, the IEU has successfully extended it from six weeks to nine weeks paid leave with the option of three weeks of the nine weeks taken at half pay.

The agreement is based upon the salaries framework proposed for government schools and also contains elements specific to Catholic education.

Matters still in dispute in the government sector, such as pay rates for casual teachers and part-time teachers in TAFE colleges, and the governments insistence that schools remain open for classes between 7.30 am and 5.30 pm are not applicable to Catholic schools.

The pressure is now on the NSW Labor Government to offer the Teachers Federation the same deal as Catholic teachers.

On April 14, more than 19,600 teachers in government schools attended stop-work meetings across the state and overwhelmingly backed their union's call for a 24-hour strike on May 4 and bans on Olympic-related activities.

Members agreed that the union executive should continue negotiations and cancel strike action if progress is made. However, Premier Bob Carr has claimed there would be no further negotiations and the government will seek an urgent listing of the dispute in the Industrial Relations Commission.

The IEU has called upon Carr to dismiss education minister John Aquilina over his misleading and inflammatory media statements on the teachers' salaries dispute.

On April 12, Aquilina claimed in a press release that the IEU had accepted "similar offer" from Catholic school employers to that offered by the state government to teachers in the state school system.

IEU general secretary Dick Shearman said the offer from Catholic employers was similar only in relation to salaries. "Catholic employers do not have a negative attitude towards teachers. They are not demanding changes to working conditions. They are not seeking to change hours of work or prevent our members from banning educationally unsound policy", Shearman said.

The NSW Labor government should offer the Teachers Federation the same deal as Catholic teachers with "no strings attached".

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