‘We’ve been quiet long enough’: Queensland teachers strike in their thousands

Wearing a mask with the word “Silence” crossed out, teacher Lyn was among the thousands of teachers who marched to Parliament House on Wednesday.

“We’ve been quiet for long enough, our classroom conditions need to improve,” she said.

Queensland’s 50,000 state school teachers walked off the job for the first time in 16 years, marking the largest teachers’ strike in the state’s history – and the Queensland Teachers’ Union has not ruled out further strikes.

“We’ll be updating our members around the state, and then we’ll be considering what our next steps are,” QTU president Cresta Richardson said.

“And if that is further industrial action, then that’s what that will be.

“We can afford an Olympic Games, but we can’t afford to pay our teachers properly.”

In Brisbane, more than 4000 teachers marched from the Convention and Exhibition Centre in South Bank across the river to Parliament House.

Jack Diamond was among them.

Diamond, who spent four years teaching in a Catholic school, said it was important that state school teachers took up the fight for all their colleagues across Queensland, including those in private schools.

“I feel as though when it comes to those types of systems like Brisbane Catholic Education, the pay is often trying to catch up to QTU, so it’s really important that QTU is setting that standard as well – especially for those sorts of smaller guys that don’t have as much bargaining and negotiation power,” he said.

Negotiations with the state government stalled last week, prompting teachers from Queensland’s 1200 state schools to walk out of classrooms on Wednesday.

More than half a million students have been affected by the strike.

One Brisbane teacher, who asked to be known only as Anne, said “workload creep and occupational violence and aggression” were the key reasons she joined the rally.

The teacher of 10 years said she felt she was “continually having to let students down to manage all of the fires that you have to put out in a school day”.

“It’s just never having time to do the best job that you possibly can.”

Classroom violence made her job even tougher, she said.

“It can be … student violence against other students; students threatening teachers; lockdowns; lockouts ... students invading school grounds; students randomly stabbing someone else with a compass.”

Year 3 teachers Amy Robson and Cassie Caterson travelled from Redlands to join the march.

Physical violence in their classrooms was their main concern, an issue that Robson said had been worsening over the past decade.

Both have experienced primary school students throwing chairs and other pieces of furniture in their classrooms, and they said teachers were crying out for more funding for teachers’ aides, particularly in prep classes.

“A lot of these children are coming to school in prep and they’ve got issues in prep, so it just continues to get worse as they go through the schooling system,” Robson said.

Richardson said some schools had been forced to close during the strike, but the Education Department insisted all schools remained open, with adequate supervision for students.

The strike action was backed by more than 95 per cent of QTU members, following the state government’s second offer of revised pay and conditions.

That offer included a wage rise of 8 per cent across three years, as well as additional payments for extracurricular activities, including a $100 allowance for each night spent at a school camp, as well as a $400 teacher registration subsidy.

The government proposed including a new salary level, which would come into effect on the third year of the agreement. The parties also discussed flattening the pay scale, which would reduce the time it took to reach the “senior teacher” pay bracket.

But the union said the offer would have put Queensland teachers among the lowest paid in the country by the end of the agreement.

Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek, the son of a teacher and a library aide, disputed the union’s claims, saying the government’s offer was above inflation.

“We have held 18 formal meetings over the past five months and remain at the table to finalise an agreement that supports and values our teachers,” he said.

“With our second offer to the union, the ‘experienced senior teacher’ extra pay line would see them at $135,000, which would make them the number-one level at that level in the country.”

Langbroek said he wanted to reassure parents, teachers and students that he was confident the government could reach an agreement.

Opposition education spokeswoman Di Farmer said the state had been “too busy playing politics” to properly address teachers’ needs, and had given teachers an “insulting offer”.

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