State Council report - 24 August 2019
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 124 No 7, 27 September 2019, page no. 6
As well as receiving reports regarding EB, workload and curriculum, State Council considered matters such as the student strike for climate change, NAPLAN Online, IPS, TAFE and the Education International World Congress.
QTU strategic objectives
State Council also turned its mind to the strategic direction of the QTU. The current strategic objectives remain in force until the end of this year, with new strategic objectives to be finalised at November State Council.
A strategic planning day was held on Friday 24 May 2019. Attendees at this day included QTU Executive members, QTU Trustees, QTU Senior Officers and QTU employees, including representatives from the Organisers and Internal Officers.
Participants were asked to identify their vision for the QTU and their views of the QTU strengths and weaknesses. While every participant had a vision for the Union, these have been condensed into common themes.
Participants wanted to see the Union:
- have active and engaged members
- have presence and culture within the workplace
- be responsive, not reactive, to member needs and government initiatives
- have strong and growing membership.
Participants also had the opportunity to consider the preliminary findings of the QTU’s Member Needs survey. The survey identified three goals for the Union to pursue:
- The QTU must increase perception of the Union’s industrial effectiveness – when securing industrial victories, the QTU must ensure a comprehensive rollout plan to inform members of industrial strength.
- The QTU should engage and activate more members – members who perceive the Union to be industrially effective and are actively engaged with their QTU membership are more likely to be engaged.
- The QTU should campaign on issues that members care about – the QTU should ensure that members care widely and deeply about issues before campaigning on them to avoid compromising the first goal and seeming as if focus is too far removed from industrial effectiveness.
Participants identified elements within three of the existing objectives that might continue, but were uncertain if they expressed clearly enough what the strategic objectives of the Union should be.
Consequently, work is being undertaken to rewrite the objectives to reflect member input regarding the vision and goals for the Union.
State Council delegates were asked to present the report to their branches and Area Councils and provide feedback via: consult@qtu.asn.au
It is proposed that consultation regarding the development of the objectives will continue, including further work with Executive, Trustees and QTU employees. Following this consultation, a further report will be provided to QTU Executive, with proposed strategic objectives being presented to QTU State Council in November.
Other business
State Council moved a resolution of solidarity with the ETU members at IO Glass currently striking for a fair EB offer from this multinational organisation.
Wayne Vogler, who was unable to attend State Conference in July, received his QTU Life Membership.