Queensland state school teachers’ strike postponed to after year 12 exams after Brisbane meeting
QTU said the majority of members had a say in the poll, with 67.6 per cent voting ‘no’.
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The union had previously announced the three-week deadline because the arbitration was expected to begin in December, but the QTU and the Ministry of Education could not agree on what issues would be brought up for discussion and postponed the start date to 30 December.
While the ministry argued that the entire agreement should be open to renegotiation, the union aimed to highlight “only unresolved and controversial issues” and lock down all other areas.
Renegotiating the entire agreement would allow the state to back away from terms that have already been green-lit, Richardson said.
“We’re certainly concerned that we’re going to lose some of the conditions that attract and retain teachers,” he said.
One of the main concerns is class sizes, which currently range from 22 to 25 students depending on what grade level is being taught, and that number could possibly exceed 30 students, Richardson said.
“It’s not good for teachers, it’s not good for kids, especially when we have so many kids with complex needs in the classroom,” Richardson said.
If the two parties had simply renegotiated the disputed terms, including wages, overtime, the number of extracurricular hours allowed, and retention and termination plans, the union estimated that the arbitration period would be shorter than the two-year timeframe previously estimated.
The union also demanded a 3 percent pay increase for teachers next year, as pay talks continue before the Industrial Relations Commission; This was in line with the state’s offer of 8 percent total wages over three years.
Schimming said the state would not agree to raise wages next year or narrow the scope of agreements submitted to arbitration because union members rejected the offer put forward last week.
He also said the terms the union said it was willing to negotiate were too vague to be considered seriously and that it might be a matter of postponing the arbitration to a later date.
“This is disappointing and only serves to delay the negotiable outcome for teachers,” Schimming wrote.
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