Labor Offers 28% Pay Rise to Teachers to Avoid Strike

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Victorian Labor's Education Minister Ben Carroll announced a 28.3 per cent pay rise for teachers over the next four years in a bid to avoid a planned strike. The offer, which is a slight advance on the government's previous position, comes after massive protests in March when up to 35,000 teachers and education support staff took to the streets of Melbourne's CBD in the state's first mass teachers' strike in 13 years.

But the Australian Education Union (AEU) has accused Labor of making an 'anti-union move' by indicating it will seek to bypass the union and go straight to employees with the offer. 'A Labor government should know better – it is union members who decide,' an AEU spokesperson said.

The revised offer would see required meeting hours halved from 80 to 40 hours a year, and teachers at the top of the pay scale would be given an annual lump-sum payment. Education Minister Ben Carroll said the government is urging union leadership to put the revised offer to members and call off the strike.

'We said we'd listen to our teachers, principals and education support staff and that's what we've done,' Carroll said. 'Students should be in classrooms and parents shouldn't be left scrambling for childcare or losing a day's pay.'

But the AEU will face significant pressure from within its ranks to return to the negotiating table, as members of its left faction push against compromising on key issues. A vocal group signalled its intention to organise its own strikes if the AEU accepted anything less than what it called 'our red lines', before the revised offer was made.

They included a 35 per cent pay increase over three years for teachers, reduced class sizes and face-to-face teaching time, and a maximum of one hour of meetings per week. The group of rank-and-file Victorian union members said it would also push for better conditions for education support staff, including a pay deal in step with teachers as well as paid lunch breaks.

George Pattichis, the president of the AEU sub-branch at Keilor Downs College, said the rally was called because members 'were tired of waiting for our union leaders to act'. 'Our leaders called off strike action in term 2 to come up with a completely inadequate agreement. We rejected that deal because it did nothing to address our unbearable workloads and left education support staff further behind,' Pattichis said.

The state government will hope the revised offer can stave off a mass walk-off that would disrupt learning at hundreds of government schools on July 23. The AEU will hold a meeting late on Friday to consider the offer and its next steps.

Education Minister Ben Carroll is urging union leadership to put the revised offer to members and call off the strike. 'Students should be in classrooms and parents shouldn't be left scrambling for childcare or losing a day's pay,' Carroll said.

The AEU will face significant pressure from within its ranks to return to the negotiating table, as members of its left faction push against compromising on key issues. A vocal group signalled its intention to organise its own strikes if the AEU accepted anything less than what it called 'our red lines', before the revised offer was made.

'The government is urging union leadership to put the revised offer to members and call off the strike,' Carroll said. 'We said we'd listen to our teachers, principals and education support staff and that's what we've done.'