Thousands of employees across 34 Queensland Catholic schools, including Ipswich’s own St Edmund’s College, took a stand during a school strike last Tuesday.
Members of the Independent Education Union – Queensland and Northern Territory (IEU-QNT) stopped work for five-minutes from 8.30am to 8.35am and undertook a range of “work bans” throughout the day.
The work bans included:
– Not performing work unless wearing a campaign sticker;
– Not attending staff meetings (except those about student welfare);
– Banning duties or activities during meal breaks;
– Banning supervision or cover periods;
– Banning playground or transport supervision;
– Banning duties to comply with employer data collection; and
– Banning all communications outside 8:30am to 3:30pm.
IEU-QNT Branch Secretary Terry Burke said union members were taking protected industrial action in support of reaching an agreement in collective bargaining negotiations with Queensland Catholic school employees.
“Employers are behaving as if collective bargaining negotiations are over, despite this very clear message from their employees that there are key issues outstanding,” Mr Burke said.
“Employers have said they will soon ballot their proposal to set wages and conditions in Queensland Catholic schools for the next four years, but they have no ‘in-principle’ agreement with IEU-QNT members,” he said.
Mr Burke said IEU-QNT members could not support a proposal that leaves key bargaining issues unaddressed.
“Members are not convinced employers are addressing key issues in schools,” he said.
“They took action as part of a campaign to address the workload crisis that is seeing teachers leave the sector in droves.
“IEU-QNT members also want respect shown to their school support staff by employers paying them contemporary wages for the work they do.”
He also said members had shown enormous determination to take protected action in the face of pressure from employers.
“The behaviour of Queensland Catholic school employers during these negotiations can only be described as intimadatory,” Mr Burke said.
“They have refused to listen to employees’ concerns, discouraged union members’ protected action at every opportunity and are now trying to ballot a proposal that IEU-QNT members do not support.
“Our union urges employers to re-consider their approach to these negotiations and return to the bargaining table with proposals to address employees’ outstanding concerns.”
For more information, visit ieuqnt.org.au