Real unions are registered
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 130 No 4, 20 June 2025, page no 10 & 11.
The QTU has been the only registered organisation for state school teachers and leaders and their TAFE colleagues for more than one hundred years. Registration is central to what makes the QTU different from organisations selling membership.
Registration with the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission and Industrial Registrar is why the QTU can offer you real professional support and power. Only registered organisations like the QTU can negotiate salaries and working conditions with the employer, and only registered organisations have the right of entry to workplaces.
Registration is what gives our Union its power. But to discover the origins of that power, you have look back to the dark days of the First World War.
Driven by a surge of patriotism, the outbreak of war in 1914 saw the QTU end a two-year campaign for a 15 per cent pay increase for all teachers and declare that teachers would make no fresh claims rises until the financial crisis prompted by the war had eased.
18 months later, and prices and rents in Queensland had soared, outstripping the national average. With their standard of living slumping, teachers felt increasingly let down by the state government. Finally, the 1916 QTU Conference voted to rescind its patriotic sacrifice.
Freed from its pledge, the Union attempted to negotiate a just salary increase with the new Labour Government, but when this ended in failure, a new solution had to be sought.
At around this time, Premier Thomas Joseph Ryan and Treasurer Edward Theodore were overseeing the progress of the Industrial Arbitration Act through the Queensland Parliament. Central to the act was a new Arbitration Court to regulate industrial and employment conditions, alleviate social injustices, and ensure that the salaries of public servants kept pace with general wage rates.
After some initial hesitancy, the QTU realised that the new legislation represented the only way it could secure salary justice for its members, and in January 1917 the annual conference agreed, without dissent, to apply for registration as an industrial association in the Arbitration Court.
In May 1917, the QTU was granted industrial registration (pictured top left), gaining the exclusive coverage of the state teaching service that it retains to this day. The Union was not slow to use this new power on behalf of its members. The Queensland Teachers’ Award, containing salary increases for most educators, was registered with the court in November 1917. It was the first made in Australia under industrial arbitration processes and may even have been the first negotiated in an industrial tribunal anywhere.
Witnessing the power the Union now had to support them, teachers at all levels and from all parts of the state flocked to join, with membership increasing by around 150 per cent between 1915 and the end of 1917.
In February 1918, the Queensland Education Journal (later the Queensland Teachers’ Journal) looked back on the “the historic year” of 1917: “Another remarkable development, one that the more progressive of our members can afford to view with a little amused surprise, is the complete unanimity with which the Union has become not only willing but eager to seize the advantages offered by the Arbitration Court… A considerable experience of former revisions of the salaries emboldens us to say that this is the only occasion on which there has been any real and general improvement of the teachers’ lot with regard to salary.”
We are now approaching the business end of the EB negotiations, with QTU members soon to be asked to either consider an offer from the state government or vote on industrial action.
Only QTU members have a say in these momentous decisions. If you are not a member, you are voiceless and powerless, with no input on how your salary and working conditions will be impacted.
The QTU’s power comes from the strength of collective, with all members pushing in the same direction and for the same result.
And this strength doesn’t only impact on statewide issues. The strength of the QTU also enables it to intervene for you on an individual or local basis, winning with and for members every day.
To the right are the views of just a few of the real members who our real Union has assisted recently.
If you have a colleague who has not yet taken up the offer of QTU membership, talk to them about why you belong to your Union and invite them to join online here.
Member C: “I joined the QTU when our Organiser made a routine visit to my school. When I asked a question about salary scales, the Organiser reviewed my pay slip and confirmed that I was being paid incorrectly. I contacted payroll, but there was no response, so I forwarded the required paperwork to the QTU, which forwarded it to HR. My classification was adjusted, and within two pay cycles I had been backpaid to my start date on the correct salary. Thanks QTU for your support!”
Member G: “For years, I was sure I was being underpaid. It felt like the system had failed me — but the QTU didn’t. Together, we uncovered a wage discrepancy that added up to nearly $100,000, including interest. The Union stepped in, challenged the situation, and we won.”
Member M: “I was a Permission to Teach (PTT) temp employee, but also a permanent teacher-aide, so I had two employee numbers. The QTU informed me that I should be able to receive maternity leave at half pay as a teacher aide and full pay as a PTT. But the department said no. The Union pursued the matter, and I received back pay for the difference between half-pay maternity leave and full-pay maternity leave. Gill at the QTU was incredibly quick to respond and kept me updated throughout the whole process.”