Parents are being warned to brace for further disruption after 35,000 educators brought Melbourne’s CBD to a standstill in their fight for better pay and conditions on Tuesday.
The Australian Education Union says the state government has disrespected its members with an offer of a 17 per cent wage increase over four years.
While it is due to return to the negotiating table on Wednesday, it has warned that the issue is a long way from being resolved and there could be more school strikes and other industrial action, including bans on communicating with parents and filling in school reports.
The union’s leadership bodies rejected the government’s offer within hours of receiving it on Monday of last week, without putting the proposal to a vote of the membership, and pressed ahead with Tuesday’s strike, which had been planned for weeks.
Police believe up to 35,000 state school teachers, education support workers and principals marched through the CBD on Tuesday – numbers that exceeded organisers’ expectations. Many arrived by bus from regional centres.
City traffic and public transport came to a halt and some businesses closed their doors as the crowd made its way from Trades Hall in Victoria Street to outside state parliament.
Hundreds of schools cancelled classes completely, offering only supervisory care for the day, while schools with significant numbers of non-unionised teachers – who were not legally entitled to take strike action – were able to offer some classes on Tuesday.
When state Education Minister Ben Carroll was questioned on the day about whether the government had done enough to avoid the strike, he said it had done all that it could.
“We have done everything we can … there were meetings with the union yesterday and there are meetings with the union tomorrow,” Carroll said.
“I’ve always said to the union, please prioritise making sure that kids go to school; let’s not disrupt them.”
The minister said the government’s offer of 17 per cent over four years as well as a 1.5 per cent overtime allowance, combined with improvements to working conditions, would bring Victorian state school teachers – the nation’s lowest paid public education workforce – to parity with their interstate counterparts.
The union is seeking a 35 per cent pay rise over three years.
Branch president Justin Mullaly defended the leadership’s decision to reject the government’s offer without presenting it to the membership.
“The AEU branch executive made a decision on Monday,” he said. “They’re an elected representative group of our membership. It also went to our joint primary and secondary council. They’re representative of principals, education support staff and teachers right around the state, in every corner of the state, in every type of school that the state has.”
Widespread anger and high-profile resignations from the union followed the previous pay deal – worth just 2 per cent a year – in 2022. A group of unionists running on a “strike now” ticket pulled in 37 per cent of the vote in internal elections in late 2024.
Union membership fell from about 48,000 in 2018 to less than 42,000 at the most recent elections. But organisers told the crowd on Tuesday that membership numbers had grown to more than 60,000 after a sustained recruitment campaign linked to the current round of pay talks.
Mullaly denied the union’s current robust approach to negotiations and industrial campaigning was about atoning for past mistakes.
“Our approach is driven by our members, and our members want to see a significant pay increase,” he said. “We’re focused on what we need to do now.”
Earlier in the day, Mullaly told the crowd that in the absence of an approved offer from the government more stop-work actions would follow.
“What we will do as a next step if we need to is … move to rolling regional stoppages,” the union leader said. “We’ve got the parent support, we’ve got the broader community support, and that what they need to do is get the minister and the premier to take action.”
Parents interviewed by The Age on Tuesday were broadly supportive of the strike action, but some expressed a desire for the disruption to their children’s schooling to be shortlived.
Engineer Ian Sims, who dropped his children for supervisory services at Bentleigh West Primary School, said he supported the strike but hoped for an early resolution.
“It is disruptive for the kids,” Sims said. “You wouldn’t want it to drag on.”
On the streets of the CBD, a sea of marching educators, some of whom took part in the state’s last mass industrial action 13 years ago, said they were angry as much about government underfunding of schools as they were their relatively low pay rates.
Teacher Sue Davis, who took part in the 2013 strike, said she and her colleagues at Richmond West Primary were frustrated with working in under-resourced schools.
“Many young teachers feel so disappointed about the amount of work they need to do. And the stress they’re under because they don’t have the resources they need, it’s very difficult,” Davis said.
“To get us to be like this it requires a lot, and we’ve been pushed to the limit. The offers they’ve given us; they’ve taken away much more than they’ve given.”
The government and the union are to continue negotiations on Wednesday.
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Jackson Graham is an education reporter at The Age. He was previously an explainer reporter.Connect via email.
Caroline Schelle is an education reporter, and joined The Age in 2022. She previously covered courts at AAP.Connect via X or email.
Chip Le Grand leads our state politics reporting team. He previously served as the paper’s chief reporter and is a journalist of 30 years’ experience.Connect via email.