QTU strike announcement looms as govt threatens arbitration
Queensland teachers are set to decide whether to strike again after rejecting the government’s pay offer, which documents reveal falls short of promised six-figure salaries.
The Queensland Teachers’ Union is expected to make a decision on Thursday about when its members will go on strike.
The decision comes after the union membership voted to reject the Queensland Government’s latest offer in what has become a drawn-out enterprise bargaining negotiation.
State school teachers were offered an 8 per cent pay increase over three years and a taskforce to investigate occupational violence.
The union has three weeks to hold its strike, but that timeline may be interrupted, with Premier David Crisafulli signalling the government may move into arbitration.
This would remove legal protections for industrial action.
“The QTU encourages the government and the Premier to end the negotiation by offering a package that addresses the QTU’s claims, that our members see value in,” QTU president Cresta Richardson said.
The union is holding out for a better pay deal and extra incentives to attract and retain teachers, which it says the current offer lacks.
Speaking at the opening of a new assembly hall at Toowoomba North State School on Wednesday, Queensland education minister John-Paul Langbroek said he had met with the union several weeks ago but had not been involved in the recent negotiations.
“Conciliation is not always between the ministers and the leadership,” he said.
“It happens at the industrial relations level and it is a little facetious to suggest the minister is at every meeting, it is dealt with by senior members of the bureaucracy, industrial relations office and the industrial relations department.”
In announcing the offer last week, Mr Langbroek said every teacher would be paid $100,000 per year by the end of the agreement.
He repeated the claim on Friday after the union voted to reject the offer.
“This deal would have seen every teacher in a classroom paid over $100,000 by the end of the agreement,” he said in a statement.
However, documents obtained by News Corp Australia show the actual offer falls short of that promise.
While a first-year teacher employed today would reach $104,668 by the end of the proposed agreement, a teacher walking into a classroom for the first time in 2027 would be on $95,429.
Mr Langbroek made a slight alteration to the claim on Wednesday to say that the $100,000 figure applied only to current teachers.
“I don’t think I’d be standing here saying that every teacher currently teaching in our classrooms will be earning $100,000 by the end of this agreement if it weren’t correct,” he said.
Questions remain as to how the previously announced anti-bullying programs would work.
In April, Mr Crisafulli announced $45 million for the Behaviour Boost program, on top of $30 million for a bullying program.
With 1,266 state schools in Queensland, each school would receive only $23,690 per year for the bullying program.
The Behaviour Boost money is intended to hire teacher aides or special education support staff, or to fund behaviour management training.
It amounts to just $35,500 per school per year.
Originally published as QTU strike announcement looms as govt threatens arbitration
