1,000 signatures reached
To: The Victorian Catholic Education Authority and Catholic education employers
Fair Bargaining Rights for Victorian Catholic Education Workers!
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Victorian Catholic education staff are preparing to negotiate a new Agreement covering over 30,000 workers. We urgently need action on excessive workloads, and our pay now lags up to 10% behind our interstate colleagues.
However, unlike Catholic employers around the country, the Victorian Catholic Education Authority (VCEA) refuses to negotiate as a ‘Single Interest’. This means that our employers could seek fines against individual employees for taking part in any form of industrial action (even for wearing campaign badges!), and it means that we can't seek Good Faith Bargaining Orders if things go off track.
As educators, we don’t want to have to take industrial action – but as workers, we know that the internationally-recognised right to do so is what gives us power at the bargaining table, and that without this right we are negotiating with one hand tied behind our back.
We call on employers in Victorian Catholic education to uphold the industrial rights of their employees and to allow good faith bargaining to commence by applying for a Single Interest Authorisation immediately.
Why is this important?
Our colleagues across Australia have secured vital improvements to pay and conditions because they have access to the industrial rights that our employers want to deny us.
The VCEA is seeking a ‘cooperative’ multi-employer bargaining process, but we’ve seen what that really means: dysfunction and massive delays, a process stacked against us, and deeply unfair constraints on our ability to effectively campaign for a fair and timely outcome.
When we last took large-scale industrial action (mirroring protected action taken by government school staff), Catholic employers sought injunctions against our union and individual members were intimidated with the the threat of fines.
If we commence bargaining under their so-called ‘cooperative’ model, employers could use this to attempt to prevent us from successfully applying for a Single Interest Authorisation for many months, locking us out of our fundamental industrial rights during the most important stages of bargaining.
Employers could apply for that Authorisation now, allowing good faith bargaining to commence this year without denying basic rights to over 30,000 hard-working staff.
The VCEA’s refusal to do so isn’t just unfair, it contradicts core Catholic values of dignity, justice, and the right to take industrial action when needed. We must stand up for fair bargaining!
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