Contrary to claims by the Independent Education Union that teachers in Queensland Catholic schools are worse off than their counterparts in New South Wales, weekly wages for both are comparable, as the following table shows. Under the awards, to establish an hourly rate the weekly wage is divided by the prescribed normal hours of work – for State School Teachers it is divided by 25 hours and for Catholic School Teachers it is divided by 30 hours.
Hence the slightly different hourly rate. This doesn’t affect the daily rate paid to a supply teacher who works a whole day because in each case the Supply Teacher works and is paid for 1/5th of the week i.e. 5 hours in a State School and 6 hours in a Catholic School.
To compare with interstate arrangements, in both the State and Catholic sectors in Victoria the weekly wage for a Teacher is divided by 38 hours which are their prescribed hours of work. Therefore a supply teacher in Victoria (who is only paid for classroom time) is paid a much less daily rate of 6/38 of the weekly wage.
Comparisons with conditions in other states is like comparing apples with oranges. For example, in NSW, teachers have conditions which are based on different working hours and different finishing times each year. Last year they finished school on 18 December whereas in Queensland Catholic schools finished on 4 December.
Catholic Education employers believe their offer of 2.5%, including back pay, is fair in the context of the Queensland workplace, and equivalent to the most recent increase given to Queensland state school teachers. Employers have also offered to match any increase provided to Queensland’s state school teachers to ensure a level playing field across the state.
Snapshot Comparison QLD & NSW Catholic School Teachers
| QLD Classifications | Years of service | QLD Catholic +2.5% @ 1 July 2016 |
NSW Catholic @ 1 January 2016 |
NSW Classifications from 1 January 2016 |
| Graduate 1 | 3 | 64,756 | 64,008 | Graduate |
| Graduate 2 | 4 | 66,295 | ||
| Proficient 1 | 5 | 69,762 | ||
| Proficient 2 | 6 | 73,237 | 77,200 | Proficient 1 |
| Proficient 3 | 7 | 76,735 | 77,200 | Proficient 2 |
| Experienced 1 | 8 | 79,643 | ||
| Experienced 2 | 9 | 82,565 | ||
| Experienced 3 | 10 | 85,471 | 83,793 | Proficient 3 |
| Experienced 4 | 11 | 88,546 | 87,096 | Proficient 4 |
| Experienced Teacher 5 | 12 | 92,628 | ||
| Experienced Teacher 6 | 13 | 96,070 | 95,466 | Proficient 5 |
| Lead Teacher | Not yet developed in Qld | |||
| Highly Accomplished Teacher | Not yet developed in Qld | 101,614* | Highly Accomplished |
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