Abstract

Enterprise bargaining update

On 25 November, QTU members across the state stopped work for twenty-four hours and turned out in huge numbers at rallies to call on the Premier to intervene in our ongoing  dispute for a fair EB. Rallies and high visibility events were held across the state, including in:

Beerwah, Biloela, Blackwater, Bowen, Bribie Island, Brisbane, Bundaberg, Burnside, Caboolture, Cairns, Dalby, Dirranbandi, Dysart, Edmonton, Emerald, Gatton, Gladstone, Goondiwindi, Gympie, Hervey Bay, Kingaroy, Longreach, Mackay, Magnetic Island, Maleny, Mareeba, Maroochydore, Maryborough, Monto, Moranbah, Mossman, Murgon, Nanango Ravenshoe, Redlynch, Rockhampton, Roma, Sarina, Stanthorpe, Sippy Downs, The Gold Coast, Toowoomba, Townsville, Trinity Beach, Warwick, Weipa, Woodford, Woree, and Yeppoon.

The QTU continues to call on this government to provide fair pay and working conditions that value teachers and school leaders, address the teacher shortage crisis, and keep our members safe at work. We thank our friends and partners who have expressed solidarity. We know that precarity of programs and employment complicates public showing of support.

(Image of QTU members striking and rallying in Brisbane, 25 November 2025)

Congratulations Doctor Junn Kato and Doctor Matt Readette!!
The QTU congratulates Dr Junn Kato and Dr Matt Readette on being awarded their PhD.

Dr Kato’s doctoral research asked young people about good care at their school and then traced how this care was made possible. Good care involved teachers, but also food, spaces, animals, music, policies, and producing a “vibe” that young people trust. Insights from the research provide evidence that building trusting vibes with young people, as arrangements of bodies, spaces and materials, can play a role in making schools fairer.

Dr Readette’s doctoral research focuses on Study Abroad through the lens of socio-spatial mobility and the outcomes relevant to the individual, their profession and political soft power. His thesis, Social Dimensions of Study Abroad: The Intersections of Education, Employability and Australian Soft Power offers recommendations that consider program design to increase participation of low-mobility social groups and diversify the global cultural perception through Australian soft power.

New QTU report, Expect Respect Vol. 2: Recognising, reporting, and responding to school-related gender-based violence.

The QTU recognises that gendered violence occurs in schools, an issue rooted in economic, political, and socio-cultural causes. These are underpinned by intersectionality of misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, racism, and inequitable distribution of wealth, all of which begin outside of the school gate. Addressing gendered violence requires policy initiatives and systems change to drive global and local communities towards a more just future, and this includes understanding that there is no single policy lever available to governments, departments, communities, schools, teachers or their Union. Rather, a coordinated response is required. The QTU has a history of resistance to oppression and barriers to safe and just futures, and the Union is committed to actively engaging in — and leading when required — government and community programs which seek to eliminate violence against women.

While there is no mechanism for reporting incidents of gendered violence in Queensland schools, QTU members have been supporting quantitative and qualitative research including support for a new QTU report, Expect Respect Vol. 2: Recognising, reporting, and responding to school-related gender-based violence. Fifty delegates wrote 52 short stories representing member experiences of gendered violence. The delegates then worked collegially to generate 34 solutions. When woven together, these scraps of data form a tapestry that creates a larger narrative. Iris Marion Young’s (1990) five faces of oppression deepen understandings of the narrative, revealing exploitation, marginalisation, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence. This oppression manifests as group violence, sexualised behaviour, intimidation, and use of derogatory terms online and in classrooms and staffrooms.

The QTU’s Expect Respect report can be downloaded from the QTU website here or request a copy from the QTU at services@qtu.asn.au.

The QTU’s Lawrence Grulke Library supports the professional and industrial needs of members, officers and staff by providing information and reference services. Members from all over the state can borrow books from our collection, with material either posted out or available for pick up, and our education research friends and partners are always welcome.

Collections include a unique repository of historically significant Department of Education resources, as well as books, journal articles and electronic resources on topics related to industrial relations and the teaching profession. The library also holds industrial instruments relevant to teachers – both current and historical – and archival material that captures the QTU’s rich organisational culture and history. Our collection supports the work of the Union and provides a history of education and teaching in Queensland.

New arrivals in the collection include Teachers and teaching in flexible and non-traditional schools, and Continuing to Teach: Stories of attrition and retention.

Teachers and teaching in flexible and non-traditional schools is a new report by Glenda McGregor, Aspa Baroutsis, and Martin Mills, drawing on four years of research alongside of data collection teachers, school leaders, youth workers, social workers, teacher aides, and other staff working in flexible and non-traditional schools. The report makes 12 recommendations for stakeholders  such as governing bodies, individual schools including school leaders, line managers and supervisors, teachers, and teacher education programs. The report can be loaned QTU’s Lawrence Grulke library, and we are grateful to the team for this report, or downloaded from https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/5825

Elizabeth Allotta’s Continuing to Teach: Stories of attrition and retention is a new book that shares insights of experienced teachers who make the choice to continue in the professions. Allotta’s ethnographic exploration of the teaching profession reveals bullying, misogyny, sexism, power disparities, lies, lack of support, and inconsistent leadership decisions. Yet, in the stories of the teachers, woven together and retold as collegial conversations, Allotta maintains that change is inevitable and that opportunities await.  Warra Warra Wai won the First Nations History Award, Canberra Critics’ Circle Awards 2024, and was shortlisted for the 2025 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.

Enterprise bargaining to continue in 2026

Since the mid-year school holidays, the Queensland Department of Education has made three separate letters of offer, but all have failed to adequately address QTU members’ call for fair pay and working conditions that value teachers and school leaders, address the teacher shortage crisis, and keep our members safe at work. The QTU has been in Conciliation with the QIRC since July and, at the time of writing, QTU members have stopped work for twenty-four hours on two separate occasions. In all likelihood, in 2026, the QTU campaign for improved wages and conditions will be referred to the full bench of the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC) for arbitration. The QTU also represents the industrial interests of vocational educators employed by both TAFE Queensland and Central Queensland University. In 2026, the QTU will be leading negotiations for a replacement enterprise agreement for both cohorts of members.

Season's greetings

Our QTU offices will close on Friday, 19 December and reopen in 2026 on Monday 5 January. The QTU thanks all of our research partners and friends for your continued contributions that improve public education, school funding, and the work and lives of teachers and students. However you and you loved ones celebrate this time of year, we wish you health and happiness.