The Catholic EA has had an elephantine gestation, but rest assured, it is on its way for voting hopefully in Term 1 next year.

At the IEU’s request the employers agreed to make the proposed payrise from May 2021 and that should have come through by now in time to fund Santa’s impending nocturnal travels.

The difficulty in recent months has not been so much ironing out claim and counter claim, but getting the wording right with matters that soon became technical and complex.

Negotiated consequences are one thing. We do not need unintended consequences from hurried or sloppy drafting.

There are going to be many changes in a largely rewritten agreement. We are aiming to produce a document for voting which is easier to follow and better arranged.

There will be wins in Paid Parental Leave becoming gender-blind. ESOs casual loadings will increase from 20% to 25%. Salary increases matching Department increases of 2.35% will be a little ahead of others schools’ increases.

Some changes will be dramatic. There will be a totally new teacher classification structure affecting new and current employees differently. AST will cease to exist after the new EA and there will be a stronger emphasis on HAT and Lead.

Teacher workload will be reduced in some areas and flexibilities between areas allowed. The employers will gain certain other flexibilities they have long sought, but when the document comes together it will be a reasonable balance of the two parties’ interests with different requirements on both.

As much as employers are keen to implement negotiated changes for 2022, any changes which are inferior to the current agreement cannot be implemented as the current agreement is still the agreement in force.

Stay tuned.