Schools stop for change – Central Queensland Today

By Khrysti Balanay and Matthew Pearce

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A mass strike occurred at 106 Queensland Catholic schools this week, with over 4000 Independent Education Union – Queensland and Northern Territory (IEU-QNT) members stopping work for their cause.

IEU-QNT members from schools including Emmaus College, North Rockhampton and Rockhampton Flexible Learning Centre, The Range took part in the strike on Wednesday, 23 August, for one hour between 10am and 11am.

Central Queensland organiser and IEU-QNT member Richard Pascoe said employees had no choice but to take strike action.

“Our members are concerned about work intensification and workload issues,” Mr Pascoe said.

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“We have been bargaining for over six months, and Queensland Catholic school employers haven’t made any meaningful interventions in addressing workload concerns.

“There’s also a concern for a lot of our non-teaching staff, who are still paid their outdated, unfair wage rates, and they are looking for that to be reviewed as well.”

Mr Pascoe said the issues have been developing over a couple of years, with it now reaching a crisis point.

“It’s the ongoing concerns around the increased workloads and additional tasks required of the teachers,” he said.

“Teachers are just looking for that additional time and support to ensure that when they’re working with the students, they’ve had time to address concerns, plan and implement the new programs coming through.”

Mr Pascoe said he knew of teachers who were leaving the profession or cutting back to part-time work because of workload demands.

“Their family life is almost impossible to maintain and this is just exacerbating the teacher shortage we’re already seeing,” he said.

He said some teachers had decided to implement “partial work bans”, where they wouldn’t answer emails outside of work hours, only to be told this would result in their pay being slashed.

“We’ve participated in industrial action previously in different rounds of bargaining, but this one is certainly out there with a number of schools within Central Queensland being impacted.

“There are about eight schools with hundreds of IEU-QNT members within Central Queensland, which forms part of over a hundred schools around the state taking part in this stop work action.”

Other Central Queensland schools that were impacted by the strike included:

– St Brigid’s Catholic Primary School, Emerald

– Our Lady’s School, Longreach

– St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, Barcaldine

– Chanel College, Gladstone

– St Francis Catholic Primary School, Tannum Sands