It’s a move that independent schools across Australia will be watching closely, as teachers at Melbourne’s prestigious boy’s school, Xavier College, vote on whether to take industrial action.
The proposed action will include not attending Saturday sport, as well as 24-hour work stoppages, as the Independent Education Union (IEU) Victoria Tasmania says staff at the school are distressed by their workload.
The negotiations over new staff agreements have continued for two years, with workload and a commitment to weekend sport attendance among the key issues. Despite a compulsory conciliation hearing at the Fair Work Commission earlier in November this year, the deadlock between school educators and management remains unbroken.
Potential bans on assemblies and detention supervision
On Monday 20 November, the IEU confirmed its members had won a protected action ballot order. That decision is a first for staff at the school and members will soon begin voting in the ballot, with the union’s internal polling showing strong support for industrial action.
Teachers at the school will decide whether to take a range of protected actions, bans on assemblies and detention duties, 24-hour work stoppages and not attending the weekend sport that is promoted to parents and students as an important part of the school’s culture and offering.
The union had said a sticking point in negotiating the new agreement was the school’s refusal to limit unpaid co-curricular workloads, a move out of step with other government, Catholic and independent schools which had better regulated teachers’ work hours.
Teaching commitments are overburdened
A new workplace agreement last year gave Victorian public school teachers hour-for-hour time in lieu for out-of-hours work on school activities including camps, excursions and information nights.
Since the commission hearing, the IEU acknowledged the college had made some concessions.
“Staff have now won co-curricular limits captured in the agreement, but for some the required 40 hours annually, on top of their teaching commitments, is too much,” the union said.
A statement from the IEU on Monday said excessive workloads and burnout were having a huge effect on Xavier staff. More than 200 staff had left since 2021. Xavier is currently being investigated by Worksafe over workload-related issues.
The school’s latest offer in June was rejected by 70 per cent of staff. The school’s union members’ vote in favour of a protected action ballet order paves the way to potential industrial action. The results of the poll are due on December 8.
“We’re seeing too many teachers at Xavier in real distress as a result of the additional hours demanded by the school,” said IEU Victoria Tasmania general secretary David Brear. “This is just not OK.”
