Editorial: Council adopts Union strategy

The 110 members of the QTU State Council have adopted a new strategy to take the Union through the next 18 months.

The strategy, agreed on 17 May, covers a period which will see, at minimum: a state election; the “modernisation” of industrial awards covering QTU members and potentially the removal of some long-standing employee conditions; and the start of the next round of enterprise bargaining under radically changed and more restrictive legislation. Changes to award conditions and enterprise bargaining are, of course, the result of the current state government’s legislative changes.

The first part of the strategy aims to secure a range of industrial and professional conditions in agreements with the government and the department. The government has changed legislation to limit the nature and allowable content of awards and enterprise bargaining agreements, but that doesn’t mean that there can’t be non-industrial agreements with the department. For almost the first 20 years of its existence as a condition, secondary non-contact time was based on an exchange of letters between the then Director-General of Education and the then General Secretary of the QTU, before working hours were moved out of regulations and into industrial awards in the early 1990s.

Surely an agreement negotiated and signed between Union and department should be honoured, whether it is enforceable in the Industrial Relations Commission or not. There are a number of current memoranda of agreement and joint statements on professional issues that the Union expects to be observed.
Working hours will not be one of the conditions removed from awards and agreements, but there are other significant conditions which may. Part of the problem is that we won’t know till the middle of next year. The time to secure “at-risk” conditions in non-industrial agreements is now.

One of those conditions is class sizes. Class size targets are currently contained in the enterprise bargaining agreement, but may not be allowed in future. The current targets are the result of more than 30 years of campaigns by Union members and will not be surrendered. The government and the department must enter into an agreement to at least maintain, if not improve, those targets into the future.

There are a range of other quasi-industrial or professional issues around which the QTU, on behalf of members, would seek agreements: professional development and the conditions under which it is provided; induction and mentoring for new educators; and the operation of professional standards, to name but a few.

What the Council has envisaged is at least two non-industrial agreements, one on professional matters, and one on a range of industrial conditions and protections that are potentially no longer allowed in awards or agreements.

Seeking an agreement on professional issues fits nicely with the government’s proposal for an Education Accord and summit, which was announced just days after State Council adopted this strategy, even though the summit’s focus is for the longer term. The QTU will be encouraging members to participate in the process and any local roundtables, and to nominate for the summit in September through their local MP.

It is important to emphasise that processes are not just about protecting existing conditions, but also securing necessary improvements.

The QTU will also bring forward its claim development process for the next round of enterprise bargaining, even though negotiations will not commence before 1 July next year. Members cannot be expected to work out what will be allowable and what will not in the next round of bargaining. So the best avenue is to identify a list of claims and then to work out which can and should be pursued through EB, and which should be pursued as part of non-industrial agreements.

For more information on the QTU strategy, a short video can be viewed at https://stacks.qtu.asn.au/ur-strategyvideo-june2014 (membership and password required).

Graham Moloney
General Secretary

Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 119 No 5, 18 July 2014, p5