Assistant Secretary of the Independent Education Union (IEU) Pamela Smith told the Post that she was impressed by the turnout.

“It was good to see so many teachers and support staff motivated and engaged towards the campaign,” Ms Smith said.

“Many of them have been working in the Catholic schools system for over 30 years, and they felt that this new enterprise agreement was ‘an insult, not a consult’.”

Ms Smith also said many of the teachers and support staff, who came from Trinity Catholic College, Sts Peter and Paul’s Primary School, and St Joseph’s, shared their concerns about the impact of the proposed enterprise agreement on their working lives and ultimately on the quality of teaching and learning in Catholic schools.

“Many of the people I spoke to who have looked at the agreement felt that it is based very much on a corporate, businesslike approach rather than a people-based approach,” Ms Smith said.

“Quality Catholic education relies on such things as goodwill, workplace collaboration and good relationships between staff, not this rigid, business-like approach.”

She also mentioned that the CEO and Catholic Commission for Employment Relations (CCER) had plenty of time to negotiate the agreement with union members.

She also responded to what a CEO representative told the ABC last week, who said that the industrial action in the ACT and surrounding NSW region was ‘premature’ and ‘unhelpful’ in the negotiation process.

“We submitted an application with the CEO to negotiate this agreement back in November of last year,” Ms Smith said.

“But it took them until April of this year to get back to us about it.

I therefore believe that they had plenty of time to come and sit down with us and discuss this properly. I’ve been a member of this union for many years, and this is probably the worst attack on working conditions I’ve seen in a long time.”

Ms Smith said the union met with representatives from both the Canberra/Goulburn Catholic Education Office and the Catholic Commission for Employment Relations (CCER) on August 12.

“The CEO has described our discussions as ‘open and productive’, but many aspects of their position remain unclear,” she said.

“For example the Archdiocese is calling for a ‘flexibility clause’ to over-ride existing workload protections, but have not given the union any details of how this would work. The CEO has also indicated they wish to remove early childhood employees out of the agreements, but again have not indicated what provisions would apply. There is also a complete lack of clarity about the proposed teacher rates for the ACT.

Other aspects of the CCER-proposed agreement remain on the table - including the proposed deregulation of workload conditions, the introduction of a much more intrusive Catholic ethos provision, the reduction in the pay and conditions of school employees, and the removal of promotions positions.”

She also hinted that employers were now stating to employees that they would release a proposed new agreement on October 1. However, Ms Smith says the negotiation process has again not been done properly.

“This is again not a document that has been discussed or negotiated with the Union at this stage,” she said.

“The Union still remains extremely concerned about many aspects of the employers’ proposed agreement. Both teachers and school employees have a lot to lose under this proposed agreement!” A letter was also sent by the union to parents from Catholic schools in the Canberra Goulburn Archdiocese to explain the situation.