IEU out to make the Victorian Catholic “Workload Agreement” work

To help with school planning for 2025, the union sent out a letter to all school leaders clarifying specific elements of the Victorian Catholic Education Multi Enterprise Agreement 2022 (the CEMEA).

The points we raised with Catholic school principals are important for everyone working in the sector, so we have summarised them here.

IEU General Secretary David Brear said the CEMEA is a “breakthrough Agreement intended to reduce workload” and it was “all about staff retention” at a time when the teacher shortage is making life tough for everyone in schools.

“Although we’ve got a way to go, the CEMEA is a big step in the right direction.”

Consultative Committees

The CEMEA requires that every school has a Consultative Committee and outlines the procedures and the default composition of a school’s Committee.

The union reminded principals that the Agreement requires that Consultative Committees meet in Term 4 to make recommendations relating to the scheduling of teacher meetings in the following year. It also requires that the Consultative Committees meet to plan and consider teacher time in lieu arrangements (TIL) before or at the commencement of a new school year.

Time in lieu for teachers

Planning around teacher time in lieu should include developing a comprehensive calendar of events which will require teacher attendance outside of normal hours and reaching agreement around how and when teachers acquit their time in lieu balances. The key to successful management of time in lieu is to plan, accrue, acquit  ̶  in that order!

The purpose of time in lieu arrangements is to ensure that teacher workloads are sustainable. Consultative Committees may agree on when all or most teachers will acquit time in lieu, such as by arranging an early end to the school year – but individual teachers working significant extra hours (such as on a school camp or during a school production) should be enabled and encouraged to take time in lieu as close as possible to those events.

Teachers don’t ‘owe’ time in lieu to schools

One issue causing avoidable friction in workplaces is the characterisation of time in lieu balances as being ‘owed’ by teachers to the school. While accruals and acquittals should as far as possible be planned and balanced in advance, time in lieu is accrued by employees when they undertake an additional activity.

Only then it is acquitted. It is not ‘owed’ in advance.

Overtime and time in lieu for Education Support Staff and School Services Officers

It’s important to remember that overtime provisions for ES/SSO staff are fundamentally different to the time in lieu provisions for teachers.

Additional hours worked by ES/SSO staff attract payment with an overtime loading unless there is mutual agreement to instead accrue time in lieu. Overtime is paid at the normal hourly rate plus a loading (33.3% loading for Education Support Staff, or the appropriate rate for School Support Officers as per Clauses 74.4 & 74.6 of the CEMEA).

Time in lieu is to be taken at a time that is mutually agreed.
If it is not taken within four weeks, the employee can request that it is paid out at the appropriate overtime rate.

ES / SSO staff cannot be required to accrue or acquit time in lieu. 
Where there is not meaningful, safe and appropriately supervised work for an ES employee, commensurate with their skills and experience, they should not be required to work or to acquit time in lieu.

While there may be legitimate work relevant to an employee’s role on student-free days, once this is completed they should not be required to continue to attend work, and they cannot be required to acquit a time in lieu balance on days where there is not relevant and appropriately supervised work for them to undertake.

It would be appropriate to discuss with your school’s Consultative Committee the meaningful, relevant and appropriate tasks for different categories of Education Support staff to undertake on student-free days.

ES staff may be invited to attend school camps and may agree to do so. 
If agreement is reached, these staff are entitled to overtime payments (with a 33.3% loading) and/or time in lieu, calculated at a half rate when ‘on call’ overnight. The school should clarify the combination of overtime and time in lieu they propose to apply when inviting an ES staff member to attend camp.

Teacher timetabling

When planning teacher timetables for 2025, the IEU emphasised several important factors:

Extras & replacement classes
Extras are eliminated from the commencement of the 2025 school year. Replacement classes can be taken by teachers who are under-allocated, providing that this does not push them over their Scheduled Class Time limits.

Due to teacher shortages, many schools have proposed offering additional payments to teachers who take replacement classes which exceed their SCT limits. Workload should be considered when such measures are established. They can only occur by mutual agreement between the teacher and the school.

Where an additional replacement class for a part-time teacher takes place outside of their usual working hours, the payment for this must be made according to Schedule 10, Table 12, which includes an 18% loading in lieu of leave accrual.

Other replacement classes

The CEMEA is silent on the applicable payment for an additional replacement class taking place within a teacher’s normal working hours. There is an argument that the rate paid should be as per Schedule 10, Table 12 (hourly rate with an 18% loading) but at a minimum the figure listed at Schedule 10, Table 12 divided by 1.18 (hourly rate less the loading) should be paid. Currently, this rate ranges from $80.82 for a T1-1 teacher to $119.89 for a teacher at level T2-6.

Class Focus Time

Class focus time is the balance of the 30 hours (or pro-rata) of teacher-directed time outside of Scheduled Class Time. This time is intended for important work related to the learning and teaching program, and it should be scheduled in genuinely usable blocks during which teachers undertake relevant work at their own professional discretion. Short breaks between other duties should not be counted as Class Focus Time.

When planning for whole-school events, excursions or camps, the key is consultation. Genuine efforts must be made to minimise the loss of Class Focus Time for individual teachers. This is an issue of equity, workload management and Agreement compliance. Where an individual teacher loses a disproportionate amount of their weekly Class Focus Time as the result of attendance at an event – consult. They should be provided with additional time elsewhere in their week or an adjacent week: this could be through a reduction in class time or employer-directed duties.

Lunch breaks

The Agreement requires that staff be provided with a “break of not less than 30 minutes per day”. Schools should endeavour to ensure that yard duties are scheduled in such a way that teachers can take an unbroken 30-minute break at a reasonable hour so they can eat their lunch.

Fixed-term employment

The CEMEA introduced new provisions around the use of fixed-term contracts, including the requirement that a fixed-term employee must be given notice of seven term weeks if their contract will not be renewed. This means that an employee on a fixed-term contract for 2024 had to be notified by Friday 1 November if they were not going to be employed in 2025.

As always, fixed-term employment must only be used if one of the circumstances outlined in Clause 11.2(b) genuinely applies. It’s important to note that ongoing funding or enrolment uncertainty are in most case not adequate reasons for using fixed-term employment.

In addition to the protections in the CEMEA, federal legislation in place since December 2023 places additional limit on the use of fixed-term contracts. The most important change is the introduction of a two-year limit on fixed-term contracts (including extensions and renewals).