Public school teachers in Central Victoria won’t be striking next week as previously planned.
The Australian Education Union has confirmed that rolling 24-hour stop-work action is being suspended for two weeks, after a new pay offer was put forward by the state government.
President of the Union’s Victorian branch, Justin Mullaly confirmed the arrangement in a statement released on Monday, May 4th.
“The Australian Education Union Victorian Branch has achieved strong progress in negotiations towards delivering pay increases aligned with other states and territories for education support staff, teachers, and school leaders,” Mr Mullaly said.
“For the AEU this means closing the percentage gap between Victorian wages and those of public education workers in NSW in 2026, with further strong increases in subsequent years.”
A graduate teacher in our state currently earns around $80 thousand per year, or roughly $10k less than what they are paid in NSW.
While details on the Victorian government’s latest offer haven’t been made public, the Union had previously called for a 35 percent pay rise over three years.
Mr Mulally added that the two-week suspension of strike action will allow “intensive negotiations to occur to maximise the best chance for an in-principal [sic] agreement to be reached.”
“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.”
The Union’s announcement of a suspension in strikes has been welcomed by Premier Jacinta Allan.
“I’m pleased to see the reports from the Australian Education Union that they are putting a hold on their planned industrial action, and I think families will be relieved to see that, and it’s a demonstration the negotiations have been going strongly,” Ms Allan said at a media conference.
School staff right across the state were to take part in stoppages throughout Term 2 as part of their fight for a better pay deal from the state government.
That included holding rallies outside the offices of the Department of Education and Labor MPs in several districts.
Locally, teachers from Bendigo, Castlemaine and Maryborough had planned to hold a rally outside Ms Allan’s Bendigo East electorate office on May 13th.
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