The TCEO claims they have not strayed far from previously agreed clauses.

They have strayed very

far. If you have further questions about the content of the TCEO proposed Agreement and the need
to vote no, please speak to the Rep at your school, or contact the union on 1800 622 889 or
info@ieuvictas.org.au. Here are just some of the nasties:
Increased workload
A move from 35 to 36 hours per week for teachers, without
the benets the union was negotiating. No obligation for
the employer to provide PD in work hours.
School year to start 3 days before the government school
year.
Increased time for scheduled meetings and other non-
teaching duties: from 5 hours per week to 6 hours per
week.
Holidays are ambiguous
In addition to the extra 3 days at the start of the year, the
right to stand-down pay for teachers is removed. Its very
unclear what holidays teachers are actually to be paid for.
No improvement to holidays for support sta, many of
whom have long periods unpaid.
The Illusion of better progression
Support sta wont get a new structure negotiated by the
union The union has been written out. The TCEO will
decide what goes into any new structure. The TCEO has
already told us that they think support sta are overpaid.
All they promise is that existing support sta will not go
backwards in pay. Wed better not hold our breath for a
pay rise if this proposal gets up.
Part-time teachers are promised faster progression up
the scale - though still not equivalent to the government
sector - and there is a catch. Instead of removing the old
accreditation requirements (which they agreed with the
union they would remove), the accreditation requirements
will be decided by policy. This allows the TCEO to put
any barriers they like in our way no negotiation. We
would only progress if we meet whatever requirements
the TCEO decide to impose. And they could change them
whenever they like.
All teachers will be denied real parity with state teachers.
The accreditation requirements, which could be changed
at whim by the TCEO, can be used to stop all of us from
going up the scale.
Remote / Isolated schools
The TCEO had agreed to put into the Agreement specic
allowances for named schools and have a process to set the
rates that involved the union. All this is deleted. Instead
they will provide certain allowances and incentives
which will be set by the TCEO if the TCEO considers the
school to be remote and hard to sta. Do we trust them
that much?
Locked up for 3 years
The TCEO had agreed to an end date of mid-2016. Then
we could have another go at getting some of the
improvements we wanted this time round. The TCEO
proposal runs to at least November 2017, if not longer.
If this proposal were approved, we would be looking
at 2018 or later before we had any chance of getting
improvements like more weeks pay for support sta, and
counting of pastoral care and home room.
Little changes big eects
There are many small changes in words from what was
negotiated with the union. Many current conditions and
protections are undermined by very small changes.
Little changes are introduced to reduce salary rates by
changing formula to calculate part-time hours and the
formula for calculating the weekly rate of pay.
These little changes reect a huge shift in power to the
employer and away from sta. For example, sta would
lose the protections they have to inuence redundancies.
The union would be shut out of the meeting and the
employer would not even be required to try to agree with
sta about the redundancies. There are too many of these
little changes to begin to explain here.
Huge cuts in the rights and powers of consultative
committees are compounded by options for the employer
to eectively avoid dealing with a committee at all.
Protections stripped out
The union is removed almost entirely from the proposed
Agreement. Whether its setting up consultative
mechanisms, negotiating a new classication structure
for support sta, being involved in redundancy processes,
or protecting people in performance and disciplinary
matters. In any of the places people rely on the union, the
union would be excluded. We would be on our own.
Pay rise What pay rise?
The TCEO proposal commits to increase all salaries in line
with increases for teachers in state government schools.
What they dont mention is that the state is freezing
teachers pay rates for at least 2015. For 2016, if wages are
not frozen again, the maximum increase will be 2%. This
proposal would lock us in until at least the start of 2018.
Why would we agree to all the negatives for little or no
wage increase?
The TCEO Single Enterprise Agreement proposal:
The devil is in the detail.
Vote NO on 27 October
Printed and authorised by D James, 120 Clarendon St Southbank VIC 3006