Qld teachers change their mind over striking during Year 12 exam period
The Queensland Teachers’ Union has sensationally backflipped on its planned strike action that was set to clash with senior exams, after being blasted by the Education Department.
An all-out wage war has erupted between the Queensland Teachers’ Union and the state government following a chaotic 24 hours that saw the union backflip on its plans to hold statewide strikes during exam week.
The strike initially slated for Thursday, November 13, was set to affect more than 7000 students who had exams scheduled during or immediately afterwards.
This included 658 students across 62 schools due to sit their final Japanese exam and 94 students’ Italian exam across seven schools.
It would have also happened a day before one of the state’s most critical external assessments, the Mathematical Methods exam, which will be taken on Friday by 5854 students across 202 schools and counts for 50 per cent of their overall grades.
In a late-night meeting, 13 QTU executives were split over whether to pursue the strike action, with seven voting in favour and six against.
The QTU then submitted a strike notice to the Queensland Police Service to have the November 13 rally authorised, informing the service that thousands of teachers would march in Brisbane from 11am.
The union was expected to announce the strike on Friday, however, after The Courier-Mail revealed the exam clash and split vote, it cancelled the media conference.
Hours later, at a snap press conference, QTU president Cresta Richardson announced the union would hold rallies after school on November 13.
“The rallies will be held after school, so you know, exams will go ahead as normal throughout the rest of the process for senior exams,” she said.
Pressed on why the union had suddenly cancelled the planned strike, Ms Richardson said it was “a logistical thing”.
She claimed the union had considered multiple strike dates, including November 13.
Ms Richardson said the union was still considering strike action over the final six weeks of the school term.
“I can confirm that we’ve been looking at a multitude of dates … It’s to be determined,” she said.
It follows months of failed wage negotiations between the QTU and the state government, with members last week rejecting a final pay rise offer of 8 per cent.
The union remains steadfast in pressuring Premier David Crisafulli to intervene in the broken down negotiations before it is forced into arbitration on December 31.
It has demanded the state government give teachers – who will now likely have to wait years for a wage deal – an upfront 3 per cent pay rise.
The union has also requested that arbitration only looks at a “narrow” set of wage matters and conditions to shorten the arbitration window.
“We don’t think that we need to go to a long-term arbitration or a full arbitration, and if the government put that (3 per cent pay rise) on the table, then we’re really happy to talk with the Premier about that,” Ms Richardson said.
“We have heard that the commissioners have already got very full diaries for the first half of next year, so it may not be until semester two … it could be quite a long process from there, so we want to narrow the things that need to be determined and decided.”
But in a sharply worded letter to the QTU on Friday morning, seen by The Saturday Courier-Mail, Director-General Sharon Schimming declared the government’s pay offer had now lapsed and that arbitration would consider the entire wages policy instead of the narrower scope the union had been seeking.
She said the union had also not provided adequate detail about what it wanted addressed in arbitration, including specifics on remuneration levels for teacher pay streams 1-3, call-out allowances and attraction incentives, and that this “ambiguity” indicated the union was effectively refusing to agree to arbitration.
“This is disappointing and only serves to delay a bargained outcome for teachers,” Ms Schimming wrote.
Ms Schimming had also slammed the timing of the November 13 strike as “ill considered” and warned it would damage “student outcomes, welfare and community perceptions of the teaching profession”.
Ms Richardson, when asked why the union was delaying arbitration after the government had refused to change the scope or provide the 3 per cent pay rise, said “the government has chosen this”.
“This is the Premier’s path,” she said. “At this point in time, the Premier can intervene at any time, even this morning – we have emailed the Premier and invited him to our executive (meeting).”
Despite half of the QTU’s executive team voting against a strike, Ms Richardson said the executive was “resolute and united in our path forward”.
Under the government pay offer rejected by QTU members last week, classroom wages would have risen by 3 per cent this year, followed by 2.5 per cent in 2026 and 2027.
Teachers on the lowest pay rates would earn $104,000 plus superannuation by 2027, but newer entry-level teachers would only earn $95,000 or $99,000, plus super and incentives.
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