AS many as 2000 employees at dozens of Queensland Catholic schools are taking strike action today (August 15) after talks stalled on enterprise bargaining.
Independent Education Union members were due to stop work for five-minutes from 8.30-8.35am and undertake a range of “work bans” throughout the day.
Some of the state’s leading Catholic schools are affected including All Hallows’ School, Lourdes Hill College, St Joseph’s Nudgee College, St Patrick’s College at Shorncliffe, and Marist College Ashgrove. A full list of 34 schools affected can be found here.
Queensland Catholic School employers have made an enterprise bargaining offer which would mean a total 8.75 per cent increase in payments to employees in 2023 alone, including wage and superannuation increases as well as cost of living measures.
A spokesman for the Queensland Catholic Education Commission said the offer was made early in the EB negotiations which started last November.
“Employees have been asking employers to arrange the vote as they want to obtain the benefits that have been offered as soon as possible.
“As part of recent negotiation processes, the union had accepted that formal negotiations were finalised as they had progressed as far as they could and that employers would be arranging an employee vote on proposed agreements.
“Employers expect to go to an employee vote in early September,” the spokesman said.
However, IEU (Queensland and Northern Territory) branch secretary Terry Burke said union members were taking protected industrial action because there are key unresolved issues.
“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.
