Right to strike in action!
More than 50,000 Queensland public-school teachers staged a 24- hour statewide strike on 6 August, making a massive statement of intent in their fight for overdue improvements on a raft of issues familiar to all education workers.
The strike spotlighted not just pay but skyrocketing workloads, chronic staffing shortages, unsafe working conditions, and classroom violence, including alarming reports of physical attacks on educators.
IEU members in Victorian Catholic schools are addressing many of the same concerns in their log of claims for the next Agreement. Uniquely among Australian Catholic education authorities, however, Victorian employers are attempting to block access to the right to take protected industrial action, a key negotiation tool for workers. If our employers applied for an SIA, we would have access to the right to take protected industrial action. We cannot risk commencing negotiations this year without access to this fundamental bargaining right.
QTU leaders described the action as necessary to protect the profession and retain staff, with their demands including fair pay, safer schools, reduced administrative burden, and better resourcing.
The issues and the fight are the same – but our legal rights are not.
