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The AEU Victorian Branch Executive has resolved to suspend the commencement of rolling stopwork action of AEU members in Victorian public schools for a two-week period, enabling intensive negotiations to occur to maximise the best chance for an in-principle agreement to be reached.
This means that the actions scheduled for this week and next week will not go ahead as previously advised.
However, other industrial bans, including bans on answering Department of Education emails, provision of written comments in student reports for parents, and school visits by state Labor MPs, remain in place.
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As students return to school for Term 2, Victoria’s public school staff have placed bans on written comments in student reports for parents, won’t implement new government initiatives in schools, and will escalate stopwork action, as part of their campaign aimed at securing fair pay and conditions, and full and fair funding for public schools.
As part of the escalation, teachers, principals, and education support staff will stop work for half a day on a rolling, region-by-region basis, starting in state budget week.
Other actions commencing today include not attending some meetings and not responding to Department of Education emails. These new actions sit alongside the existing ban on Labor members of Victorian Parliament visiting schools.
These actions follow the statewide, full-day stopwork last term – 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.
Australian Education Union Victorian Branch President Justin Mullaly said public school staff had been driven to these lengths because Victoria had the lowest funded public schools and lowest paid public school teachers in the country, with principals and education support staff also underpaid.
“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,” Mr 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.
“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,” Mr Mullaly said.