The Independent Education Union of Australia NSW/ACT Branch, which represents over 32,000 teachers, support staff and principals in the non-government education sector, has secured significant pay rises for a large group of support staff working in Catholic systemic schools in 10 dioceses in NSW and the ACT. A separate agreement applies in the Diocese of Broken Bay.
Negotiations in relation to teacher workload and salaries continue under the interim settlement agreement.
After 18 months of negotiations, almost all classroom and learning support and administrative staff will receive pay rises of between 5% and 13%, backdated to the beginning of the year. The pay rises bring Catholic support staff in line with their colleagues in the public sector.
"The IEU has adopted a pragmatic approach to settling a long running campaign," Mark Northam, Secretary of the Independent Education Union of Australia NSW/ACT Branch, said.
"The union's Executive determined it was appropriate to secure significant improvements for support staff in NSW and the ACT," Northam said.
"This is a historic deal. It's been a long time coming. The way is clear for significant improvements for teachers going forward."
Both teachers and support staff will achieve better parental leave provisions from 1 June. There will be effectively an extra two weeks parental leave for the primary carer, and 12 weeks paid leave for a partner who takes over the care of the baby when the initial carer returns to work.
"Support staff and teachers can be justifiably proud of the stop work actions they undertook in 2022. It's been a long campaign, but we got there," Northam said.
The IEU looks forward to cooperative talks with employers to achieve further improvements for teachers.
