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Our Industrial Team and Organisers are almost constantly involved with Enterprise Agreement (EA) bargaining at various worksites and we keep members informed at their worksite through specifically targeted updates.

Here, Industrial Officer Dan Farmer shares a snapshot of negotiations at two schools to demonstrate to members that you and your colleagues can enact change at your school if you act collectively.

Mount Barker Waldorf School: Progress in Negotiations

Despite the initial slow pace, there’s reason for optimism in our ongoing negotiations for an EA at Mount Barker Waldorf School.  All parties involved have expressed a commitment to moving forward to progress matters, and this has yielded some positive outcomes.

Agreed Points

• Salary Increases: We’ve reached consensus on salary adjustments of 3%, 4%, and 5%
• Camp Allowance and Time Off in Lieu: An increase in the camp allowance and better time of lieu conditions have been negotiated for camps.
• Union Rights: an enhanced union rights clause
• Criteria-Based Increment: A two tier criteria based increment to recognise non-teaching staff skills and experience.
• Long Service Leave: Now available in weeks, providing flexibility.

Outstanding Matters

While progress has been made, several critical issues remain unresolved, and two of these are widely and deeply felt by non-teaching staff.

At future meetings we hope to get agreement on:

• Right to Disconnect:
• Teacher Workload: Addressing workload challenges faced by educators.
• Non-Teaching Staff Classification:
• Non-Teaching Staff Leave: to provide leave to non-teaching staff during the two-week Christmas shut down.

Temple Christian College:  Negotiations Start.

At Temple Christian School, negotiations for a new EA are underway. However, there are concerns as the employer issued an incorrect Notice of Employee Representational Rights (NERR) under the Fair Work Act. The IEU has written to the employer stating our Log of Claims. We will provide to the employer more detailed proposals on how we believe they can be addressed. As always, we are open to any reasonable proposal put that will address member concerns.

Additionally, the employer failed to pay salary increases from the current agreement, and we have raised this with the employer.

What is a NERR? What is a Log of Claims?

In a future edition of Class Action, we will demystify some of these terms and clarify the bargaining process so that you can better understand the process and perhaps this will ‘spark interest’ in being involved in your next EA negotiations.