Your delegates were back at the table on 26 June, pushing on pay parity, classifications and wages. This is the part of the Log where the department's real position on money becomes clear. Here's what was tabled, and where each claim landed.
Pay Parity and Classifications
Pay parity across equivalent roles. This claim covers both Child Safety and Youth Justice, and it's aimed at both departments. Delegates put real examples on the table:
- After-hours Youth Justice workers are classified PO4. After-hours Child Safety workers doing the same kind of work are PO3.
- Specialist Clinicians and Principal Clinicians who have to be registered with their Allied Health profession are not being paid at the HP equivalent rate.
- Business Officers doing the same work as their counterparts at Education Queensland are paid below what those roles translate to at AO6.
- OCFOS Legal Officers are paid PO4. The equivalent role at the DPP is PO5. Senior Legal Officers are PO5 against PO6 at the DPP.
- PO2 Case Workers in Youth Justice are not paid parity with counterparts and cannot progress as early as Child Safety PO2 could in the past.
- Youth Justice Team Leaders - Are PO4 and should be paid parity to the PO5 counterparts in Child Safety
- Adoptions Officers are still entry-level PO2 where their CSO counterparts are PO3
The ask is simple: if you're doing equivalent work in Youth Justice or Child Safety, you get paid the same as your equivalent in the other stream.
Youth Justice and Pay Parity
Youth Justice at negotiations had mentioned a Review again - this may sound like its groundhog day, because it is. Last EB Round while Child Safety moved PO2 positions to PO3 - Youth Justice promised a review called "Future State," later rebranded to "Service Model Refresh" - this review started, then stopped and never continued. Your delegates made it clear, Youth Justice can act, and that promising another review would not pass the test for union members.
Remove pay scale caps and progression blocks: This isn't about giving everyone automatic progression to AO8. It's about removing the artificial barriers that stop you progressing within your classification once you've actually met the time and performance requirements. Youth Justice PO and OO staff are stuck behind progression points that Child Safety staff already moved past under their own directive. We're pushing for the increments to open up properly at PO3, PO4, PO5, AO3 and AO4.
Career pathways embedded across all roles Delegates tabled real gaps in the system:
- Admin Officers in service centres are AO3 and cannot progress beyond this. There's a Senior Admin Officer role at AO4 in child safety that exists on paper but isn't being used.
- CPAs and ISSOs have no defined career pathway at all. This claim asks for one to be built specifically for First Nations staff.
- SCAN Coordinators are classified PO3 but are doing PO4-level work: mentoring, practice guidance and system leadership in SCAN meetings. We want a defined pathway from PO3 to PO4 based on time and performance, not on whether a vacancy happens to open up.
- PO3 to PO4 - Right now, if you're a CSO, your only way up is to wait for someone else to leave. We're asking for that to change, that you should be able to progess without wanting to go into leadership roles.
Remote and Regional Attraction and Retention Package Three things on the table here: parity with Queensland Health, Education and Queensland Police on housing support and remote incentives; extending eligibility to every CSYJ worker in a classified remote or regional location, with no classification caps or location anomalies; and a consultation and consent clause so the department can't change the scheme without union agreement.
Cultural Loading Allowance and review of ISSO/CPA classifications In progress. The department is engaging on this one. The ISSO role hasn't had a proper classification review since 2010. We're pushing for that review to happen, and for cultural load to be formally recognised and paid, not just acknowledged in policy.
Expand Retention and Continuance Allowances to all roles. Both departments rejected in its current form. The department's position is that it has targeted these allowances at specific roles in the past and doesn't want to commit to extending them across the whole Agreement. We're pushing back: SCAN, Adoptions Officers and Court Coordinators are doing work with the same retention risk as roles that already get this allowance. There's no good reason they're left out.
Other Matters and Wages
No loss of existing entitlements Both departments agreed in principle to this claim. This claim stops the departments using this round of bargaining to quietly strip back what you've already got.
Fair and reasonable wage increases above inflation: The department's answer was "as per Wages Policy." That's the government's existing 3% / 2.5% / 2.5% wages policy.
Reservation of rights on the Commission of Inquiry This claim stays on the Log. It protects your union's right to raise new claims once the Commission of Inquiry findings land and we see what industrial impacts come with them.
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