Unionists educate Queensland school students on workplace rights
EDUCATION Minister Grace Grace has issued a statement just hours after she abruptly ended a press conference following comments that young people will be encouraged to join the union.
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EDUCATION Minister Grace Grace has issued a statement just hours after she abruptly ended a press conference following comments that young people will be encouraged to join the union.
In the statement, the Minister said the appropriate place for unions to recruit members was in their workplace.
“The Government will not allow union recruitment of students at school,” she said.
“This is not an initiative of the Education Department.”
Earlier Thursday afternoon, Ms Grace said everyone needed to “calm down” following the QCU’s launch of its Young Workers Hub.
However despite saying the Department had not endorsed the union’s initiative, the Minister could not at the time say whether the Government would approve it going forward.
“From what I understand it hasn’t even been finalised,” she said.
“This is not an initiative of the Education Department, it has not been endorsed.”
It comes after The Courier-Mail reported young people would be encouraged to join the union as part of Queensland Council of Union’s plan to go into schools and teach teenagers about workplace rights.
The Courier-Mail earlier revealed that the QCU was developing a pilot program for the Young Workers Hub that will initially roll out across a small cohort of southeast Queensland schools.
The Hub would lend advice around wage theft and workplace bullying to secondary school students.
QCU Secretary Ros McLennan said young people would “absolutely” be encouraged to join the union.
“It would be a bit odd if the QCU wasn’t about encouraging young people to join,” she said.
“We’d encourage young people like we would any other worker to be mighty, be unbreakable and join the union.”
The State Opposition has slammed the Young Workers Hub, claiming the initiative was nothing more than a recruitment tactic following news that membership numbers were in sharp decline.
Earlier, it was reported that the program would offer workplace advice to teenage students and will be tested as part of a pilot program across southeast Queensland schools.
Ms McLennan told The Courier-Mail that if successful, it would be offered as an opt-in program for schools statewide.
“This is an education outreach program aimed at seniors secondary schools students,” Ms McLennan said.
“If young people aren’t aware of their rights at work — things like the correct pay and workplace health and safety practices — if no one is out there telling them that, they’re not going to learn it by osmosis.”
However the move has been slammed by the State Opposition as nothing more than an attempt to boost declining union membership numbers.
A lesson plan is being developed as part of the pilot program, with peer-to-peer advice to be offered to students.
The Hub would also provide contact channels and a campaigning arm for young people to make their workplaces better.
Ms McLennan said it was important young people understood the role of unions in workplaces.
It comes just months after Queensland Teachers’ Union general secretary Graham Moloney pledged the QTU would ensure there were Eureka Stockade flags in every school in solidarity with the CFMEU.
The move was slammed as an attempt to indoctrinate children as militant unionists.
However Ms McLennan said she was not expecting similar concerns over the latest scheme.
“I am a parent of two school-aged children, I think most parents would be horrified about their children being exploited and ripped off,” she said.
“These young people work very, very hard for relatively little money to provide themselves with books for further study or to pay the rent and make ends meet.
“I think parents will universally applaud those schools that engage with this program.
“We are also using it as a bit of a campaigning arm so that systemic wage theft is being uncovered.”
However the LNP’s education and industrial relations spokesman Jarrod Bleijie said the move followed a “mass exodus” of people leaving the unions.
“This is nothing more than a stunt to build membership,” he said.
“It is completely inappropriate for unions to be entering schools for indoctrination.
“We saw it when CFMEU wanted to have posters in the school grounds.
“The union movement has no place inside our school gates and it should be free from political intervention.”
Education Minister Grace Grace welcomed the move.
“I think this is a great initiative of the QCU to assist young workers to know their rights, get their just entitlements and have a healthy and safe workplace,” she said.
“The Department of Education has processes in place for any organisation to provide services and resources to schools.
“Years ago when I would visit schools to talk about industrial relations or health and safety issues, it was done by invitation of the school.”
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