State of play on wages in Catholic systemic schools

We are seeing progress on wages for support staff, but teacher pay negotiations are dragging. Workload remains a huge issue.

The NSW Government has not yet made an offer for pay rises for teachers in NSW government schools. This is partly because the award that applies to teachers in NSW general government schools does not expire until the end of the year, unlike other awards applying to NSW public sector workers that expired in June. Members will have seen media coverage about those general public sector negotiations, but nothing about negotiations for teacher pay rises. The IEU anticipates an offer will be made in coming months, after the other negotiations have been resolved. We acknowledge the important statements NSW Education Minister Prue Car has made about the need to address teacher pay, as well as workload. We will seek the immediate flow on of any agreed public sector teacher pay increases.

A number of dioceses have already reclassified employees and paid the back pay to January. These dioceses include Sydney, Armidale, Wagga Wagga and Wilcannia-Forbes. The Dioceses of Wollongong and Parramatta are advising payment should be made in July. The Dioceses of Bathurst, Lismore and Maitland-Newcastle are still to confirm payment dates and we will be writing to them to urge that they pay the increases as soon as possible. Catholic Education Canberra & Goulburn has advised payment will not be made for some weeks. (The Diocese of Broken Bay had previously implemented the payments from January).