By Noel Towell
A messy workplace dispute is brewing between teachers at Victoria’s Catholic schools and their employers, with the educators’ union threatening Fair Work action to enable its members to take industrial action.
A militant mood among the state’s government school teachers has spread to the 30,000 educators at Victorian Catholic schools, whose wages lag behind their interstate counterparts by up to $10,000 a year.
The vast majority of Catholic teachers surveyed by the union said they were ready to walk off the job for better pay and conditions, raising the prospect of school strikes.
But a protected sector-wide strike by Catholic teachers is not a current option because the 30,000 educators are employed by 33 separate church-linked entities, ranging in size from the giant Diocese of Melbourne to single-site employers.
Even before wage talks get officially under way, the teachers’ union and the Victorian Catholic Education Authority disagree sharply about the framework for negotiations.
Despite terms and conditions being uniform across the sector, the complex structure means that the Catholic teachers are not regarded under the Fair Work Act as a single workforce and are denied the right to strike.
This is different to the 52,000 teachers in Victoria’s government schools, whose pay is broadly on par with their Catholic counterparts and whose union, the Australian Education Union, is warning that members could walk off the job as they pursue a pay claim that might be worth up to 14 per cent in the first year.
The Independent Education Union says the Victorian Catholic Education Authority – the Catholic schools’ employers umbrella group – could consent to a “single entity” bargaining process, granting the teachers the same industrial rights as their government school counterparts. But the authority, uniquely among the states and territories, has refused.
The authority told The Age that it saw no reason to depart from the bargaining framework used to reach the past four workplace deals for Catholic schools, and that falling into line with the rest of the nation’s Catholic education bodies with a “single interest” model would be a distraction from the main effort of striking a deal.
The Independent Education Union’s Victoria and Tasmania branch secretary, David Brear, said Catholic school teachers, earning less than their counterparts in other states, were becoming disillusioned with their pay and conditions.
“Since the last agreement was negotiated, teacher wages in other states have taken off – they’ll need to increase in Victoria by more than 10 per cent in 2026 just to catch up with NSW,” he said.
“Staff, including school leaders, continue to drown in paperwork, and the growing number of education support staff in schools are disillusioned with the systemic undervaluation of their work.”
If no deal could be reached with the authority, Brear said the union would take legal action in the Fair Work Commission on behalf of its “angry and frustrated” members to force the single-interest model on the Catholic schools authority.
“Things just can’t stay the same,” Brear said. “IEU members demand the right to take protected industrial action.
“This doesn’t necessarily mean that they will do so, but it’s a vital bargaining chip they can use if employers refuse, as they have in the past, to agree to a fair deal. Without this right, our members are negotiating with one hand tied behind their back.”
But the Victorian Catholic Education Authority’s chief executive, Elizabeth Labone, indicated the authority had little interest in meeting the union’s demand on sector-wide industrial rights, telling The Age that she preferred to follow the “strong tradition” of “co-operative enterprise bargaining” in the state’s Catholic schools.
“VCEA and the Catholic school employers hold concerns that seeking a single-interest enterprise agreement will take time and attention away from preparing for and commencing bargaining for a new agreement that will benefit employees, proprietors and the Catholic education sector,” Labone said.
“VCEA and Catholic school proprietors will be seeking to negotiate an agreement which reflects and rewards the significant contribution employees make to our Catholic schools and school communities through wages and conditions.”
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