The Teachers Are Blowing Their Whistles!

On Saturday November 7 2009 the Queensland Teachers' Union ( QTU ) state council agreed to accept the Queensland Government's pay offer of 12.5 per cent over three years.

This is the offer that the QTU had previously refused.

The QTU had asked for an 18.5 per cent pay rise.

Teachers will get -

  * a 4.5 per cent wage increase backdated to July 12009

  * 4 per cent in July 2010

  * 4 per cent in July 2011

This wage increase - the same wage increase as the one awarded to other Queensland public servants - will cost the Queensland Government $900 million.

A further $100 million has been allocated for the "sweeteners" that persuaded the QTU to accept the offer -

  * principals and other administrators will receive an additional 2.5 per cent wage increase.

  * teachers with 13 years or more experience will be able to apply for an upgrade a new "senior teacher" classification. The upgrade will be awarded on "merit".

The QTU spent $75,000 of union members' money during the March state election campaign attacking Premier Anna Bligh in a media blitz.

Premier Anna Bligh finds $1 billion for Queensland teachers, Darrell Giles, The Sunday Mail : 7 November, 2009.

The QTU have calculated that, if Queensland teachers accept the new pay scale -

in 2010 a teacher in their fifth year of service will be paid :

Northern Territory $74,009

Western Australia $72,776

ACT $66,091

New South Wales $66,031

Queensland $64,831

Tasmania $62,961 (March 2009)

Victoria $62,141

South Australia $62,089 (Jan 2009)

12.5 is the original offer ... whoop-dee-doo.

We've been sold out again for little gain.

Not happy with QTU.

I would have preferred it if we had fought for better working conditions (buildings that are not demountables and falling apart, airconditioned rooms so children are more amenable to learning in summer, etc.).

I am not voting ALP again ... I have a long memory, Anna.

Dee of Sunshine Coast, Reader's Comment 330 of 342, Premier Anna Bligh finds $1 billion for Queensland teachers, Darrell Giles, The Courier-Mail: 7 November, 2009

What percentage of teachers will actually benefit from this decision?

Matt of Coomera, Readers'Comments 107 of 155, Premier Anna Bligh finds $1 billion for Queensland teachers, Darrell Giles, The Sunday Mail: 7 November, 2009

The QTU have their hands well and truly in the ALP's pocket.

It disgusts me.

I smell a rat.

The QTU executive knew that this was the only possible outcome all along.

By stringing it out both parties look like victors, well maybe to the unwashed masses.

All smoke and mirrors.

OZ, Reader's Comment, Qld teachers win $1b deal, Tony Moore, Brisbane Times : 8 November, 2009.

Suggesting that Queensland teachers will be the highest paid is misleading.

In the three years that it will take before the full increase is provided all other states will have had further increases, leaving Queensland teachers one of the loest paid yet again.

Time to have a National Curriculum and a national wage agreement for teachers.

Neil, Reader's Comment, Qld teachers win $1 deal, Tony Moore, Brisbane Times : 8 November, 2009

Sold out again.

So, in order to have "parity" with other states, Queensland teachers have to work another four years.

Also, it's interesting that the QTU didn't wait to see what happened with the QIEU action.

Hopefully members vote "NO".

Aenigma, Reader's Comment, Qld teachers win $1b deal, Tony Moore, Brisbane Times : 8 November, 2009

What about the teachers who fall between being a graduate and being a senior teacher - what do they get out of this decision?

It seems that the classroom teachers have been forgotten here.

Unsure of Brisbane, Readers' Comment 128 of 155, Premier Anna Bligh finds $1 billion for Queensland teachers, Darrell Giles, The Sunday Mail : November 7, 2009

I am one union member somewhat underwhelmed by the new pay offer.

For most teachers, this offer delivers no real improvement over what has already been offered and rejected.

I will be voting against the offer.

The increased workload I have had over the past three or so years has not been fairly compensated.

Steve, Readers' Comments 184 of 258, Premier Bligh finds $1 Billion for Queensland teachers, Darrell Giles, the Sunday Mail, November 7, 2009.

Queensland teachers have been sold out again by a union leadership that acts like a sub-branch of the ALP.

This is more about getting Anna Bligh re-elected than wage justice for Queensland teachers.

The majority of classroom teachers will simply get what the Queensland government offered last year, while those in promotion positions

- those whose salaries the QTU leadership tie their own salaries to -

get an extra pay rise, just as they did in the last couple of EBs.

Chris Timms of Brisbane, Readers' Comments 240 of 258, Premier Anna Bligh finds $1 billion for Queensland teachers, Darrell Giles, The Sunday Mail : 7 November, 2009

I have seen the details on the union website.

WHAT A JOKE !!!!!!

It is pathetic.

It will ensure that Queensland teachers will end up being the lowest paid in the country, yet again.

The pay deal only benefits Principals and Deputy Principals.

I am furious with the union and I will not be renewing my membership next year.

I love teaching.

I just hate working for the education department.

I will end up just another teacher who leaves this horrible system.

Josie Elvechio of Greenslopes, Reader's comment 56, Premier Anna Bligh finds $1 billion for Queensland teachers, Darrell Giles, The Sunday Mail.

I love the way that both the government and the unions have put a positive spin on this result when aside from a couple of divide and conquer sweeteners for a few, for most teachers it is the same offer that the QTU rejected all year.

My union fees at work!

Pedro of Logan, Reader's comment 72, Premier Anna Bligh finds $1 billion for Queensland teachers, Darrell Giles, The Sunday Mail.

This is a pay deal for first-year teachers, senior teachers and principals.

All other teachers are just getting the pay rise that was originally rejected by the union.

I'm confused.

Confused of Queensland, Reader's comment 73, Premier Anna Bligh finds $1 Billion for Queensland teachers, Darrell Giles, The Sunday Mail.

Les McCudden was sad to be leaving Gympie State High School yesterday.

Mr McCudden has been teaching at Gympie State High School for the past 17 years.

But when he moved to Queensland from New South Wales twenty years ago, he had to take a huge pay cut.

And this has affected his superannuation payout.

As a trainer in the mines Mr McCudden will start on about $70,000.

And he has the potential to earn much more than he can as a classroom teacher.

Better pay crucial to retaining teachers, Renee Pilcher, The Gympie Times.

And

down in the dirt and dust, amid the rumble of heavy machinery, they are recasting what used to be the man's world of mining.

Preference is being given to women drivers.

Ex-teachers and public servants are recruits of choice.

"A shift in a mine is now as likely to be made up of as much as a third with women operators, former teachers, police, nurses, sales clerks or farmers," Mackay-based mines recruiter David "Crockie" Saunders said.

Mr Saunders said a beginner truck driver would earn between $85,000 and $110,000 a year.

Mines recruit women drivers on big money, Tony Koch, Jamie Walker, P.10, The Nation, The Weekend Australian, 13-14 February 2010.

On Tuesday May 19, 2009, teachers all over Queensland went on strike for 24 hours to protest at the recent Queensland government pay offer to Queensland teachers.

The government offer was 12.5 per cent over three years.

But Queensland teachers say that this is not good enough. 

They want equal pay with teachers in other states.

• Teachers united in pay fight, Thomas Chamberlin, Wednesday, May 20, 2009, The Cairns Post: http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2009/05/20/43121_local-news.html

In 1984, the salaries of first-year Queensland teachers were 101.4 per cent of average Australian weekly earnings.

In 2009 the salaries of first-year Queensland teachers are 81.7 per cent of average Australian weekly earnings.

A first-year graduate teacher in Queensland - after four years at university - earns $4,500 less than a graduate police constable and $1,500 less than a graduate nurse.

West Australian teachers were recently awarded a 23 per cent pay rise.

And already this year the Queensland Teachers' union has heard of more than 100 Queensland teacher graduates who have moved to Western Australia to work in WA schools.

• Queensland Teachers' Journal Special EB6 Edition, authorised by John Battams, General Secretary, QTU - May 2009