Catholic school employers offer 8.75% increase

Queensland Catholic School employers have made an enterprise bargaining offer which would mean a total 8.75 per cent increase in payments to employees in 2023 alone, including wage and superannuation increases as well as cost of living measures.

The offer includes further wage increases and other benefits in the following two years.

A spokesman for the Queensland Catholic Education Commission said the offer was made early in the EB negotiations which began last November.

“Employees have been asking employers to arrange the vote as they want to obtain the benefits that have been offered as soon as possible.

“Employers expect to go to an employee vote in early September,” the spokesman said.

“Union representatives agreed at a Fair Work Commission conference on 25 July that formal negotiations had progressed as far as they could and were therefore finalised and that employers would proceed to an employee vote on proposed enterprise agreements.

“While the Branch Secretary of the IEU-QNT is keen to organise action, it’s difficult to understand what is hoped to be achieved by this latest action after previously agreeing that negotiations have been finalised.

“Employers have agreed to include school consultative processes in the agreement in which staff will provide feedback and advice about workload issues.  Employers continuously review processes to take account of changing workload demands in schools.

“It is unclear why the IEU-QNT continue to refer to pursuing a claim for increased school officer wages as the union confirmed in writing during negotiations that its “position tabled was withdrawn”.”

Employers have previously raised concerns with the union about misrepresenting the status of negotiations in their communications encouraging members to take action.

The one-hour action proposed by the union for Wednesday 23 August involves a minority of Queensland Catholic schools and not all union members in those schools will be participating.

Schools will manage the action, including adjusting the timing of school breaks during the day so that there will be minimal impacts on student learning.

[ENDS]

Date: 23 August 2023