Victoria’s public school staff are escalating their industrial action as Term 2 begins, banning written report comments, refusing to roll out new government initiatives, and escalating stopwork measures in a push for fair pay, better conditions and full funding.
Teachers, principals and support staff will also skip some meetings and ignore Department emails, adding to an existing ban on visits from Labor MPs.
As part of its escalating industrial dispute with the Allan Government, the Australian Education Union’s (AEU) Victoria Branch said staff will again walk off the job for half a day on a rolling, region-by-region basis, starting in state budget week.
The latest crisis was triggered after the Allan Government rejected the union’s demand for a 35% pay increase and improved working conditions and presented a 17% counteroffer that the union called “completely unacceptable”.
On 24 March, the union began a statewide, full-day stopwork action – the first such action in 13 years – with more than 35,000 public school staff marching in Melbourne’s CBD and rallying at the Victorian Parliament.
Despite the impasse, Victoria’s Education Minister and Deputy Premier, Ben Carroll, said he was committed to getting a deal that gives the state’s teachers nationally competitive wages.
“They are so important to Victoria’s future and I’m urging the union to continue, as they have been, negotiating with faith,” Carroll said. “We are having accelerated bargaining right now and I am hopeful that we can get a deal with our teachers to give them the nationally competitive wages and conditions they deserve.”
On 10 April, following the union’s threat to escalate industrial action, Carroll said he had been holding meetings with the union four times a week and would continue pursuing a “fair and reasonable deal for teachers.”
‘Overworked and undervalued’
In a statement today, AEU Victorian Branch President Justin Mullaly said staff had been pushed to breaking point, with Victoria home to the nation’s lowest-funded public schools and lowest-paid teachers, alongside underpaid principals and support staff.
“Victoria’s public school staff are overworked and undervalued, with the average school employee doing 12 hours of unpaid overtime a week and experienced teachers set to earn over $15,000 less than their NSW counterparts by October. It is a similar story for many education support staff and school leaders,” Mullaly said.
“These are the dedicated professionals whose work helps to shape the course of children and young people’s lives, but Premier Jacinta Allan and Education Minister Ben Carroll are taking them for granted.”
Mullaly said the solution was clear, and long overdue, warning that without urgent action, the pressures facing schools would only deepen.
“If they care about public school students and families, and want to properly address chronic staffing shortages, they need to immediately fully fund public schools and offer public school staff pay increases that properly reflect the value of their work.”