Teachers at Canberra’s only public TAFE, the Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT) have voted in favour of an unprecedented deal that will see some receive pay increases of more than 33% by the end of 2025, equating to an 11% per annum payrise.
Under the new agreement negotiated by the Australian Education Union, starting pay for a CIT teacher will increase from $80,673 today to $107,501 by December 2025. Top of the scale teacher salaries will go from $107,642 to $123,449 over the same period. CIT had originally proposed a pay deal that would have seen teachers earn as much as $16,000 a year less than what the union negotiated in the new agreement.
AEU ACT Branch Secretary, Patrick Judge said that CIT Teachers deserved the unprecedented salary increase.
“Our CIT teachers have done an incredible job over the last few years, including winning local and national awards for the quality education that they deliver. This pay increase recognises the contribution that teachers have made and continue to make in ensuring that our community has the skills it needs.”
While teachers were satisfied with the pay outcome, Mr Judge said more needed to be done to attract and retain teachers at CIT.
“Our union won’t rest until every teacher in the ACT is paid the same. While this is a big step forward for CIT teachers, their remuneration still lags school teachers at the top of the scale. We don’t think there is any reason that TAFE teachers should be worth less than their school-based counterparts.
We hope that this is the start of a new chapter at CIT in terms of recognition and reward for staff. Programs like fee-free TAFE are great but we need to rebuild and re-energise the public TAFE sector so that these programs can deliver on their promise.”
Mr Judge said the agreement also contained crucial provisions to address teacher workloads and that CIT was engaged in genuine consultation with the union over workload reduction measures.
“We welcome CIT’s commitment to working with the union on fixing teacher workloads over the course of this agreement. We are already working with CIT on pilot programs that we think hold considerable promise.”
The new agreement also contains improvements to conditions for CIT staff, including:
- Overtime entitlements for level 2 (experienced?) Teachers
- Flextime for TAFE College Directors
- A 2-year new teacher support program, including reductions in teaching hours for teachers who undertake mentoring activities.
- A review of administrative support in consultation with the union by 30 November 2024
- Introduction of a right to disconnect clause that entitles employees to disconnect from all work-related ICT and communications outside their agreed hours of work.
CIT teachers will also receive the same improved conditions offered to other ACT public sector workers, such as the increase in birth leave from 18 weeks to 24 weeks.
Mr Judge said that the agreement is a testament to the power of union action.
“Our members made clear to CIT management that they were willing to take industrial action if they were not presented with an offer that respected the contributions they make. For some of our members, this deal represents an increase of more than $600 a fortnight in their pay packet by the end of 2025. That’s the sort of outcome that we need to see if we are to address cost of living pressures and high inflation.
Our strength comes from the high proportion of CIT Teachers that join their union, and any worker wanting a better pay offer should learn from the recent good outcomes for ACT Public Schools and CIT, join their union and demand a better deal.”
Contact: Patrick Judge, aeuact@aeuact.org.au, 0419597995