- The Guardian
- Issue #2191
Photo: Maria Turkmani – pexels.com (CC0)
Burnout is the real crisis. This latest deal between the Australian Education Union (AEU) and the Victorian Education department doesn’t fix our schools. We deserve more than a pay rise. We deserve a sustainable respected profession.
What’s wrong with the deal? 28% sounds great. Look closer.
The reality is that while our log of claims was for a 35% increase over 3 years to address our real wage cut due to inflation since 2022, this offer is only 28.3% over 4 years.
They are splitting it into 13.04% in 2026, 4% in 2027, 4.00% in 2028 and 4.9% in 2029.
Low-paid education support staff are being made an offer lower than teachers at 27%. The high-paid principal class are being offered 32.4%. It’s not clear that this is actually a pay rise, once inflation is factored in.
Our last agreement in 2022 cut the real wages of teachers by 11%, relative to inflation. Inflation is currently running at close to 4.6% this year.
So we need 16% this year, just to get back to where we were before the disastrous 2022 Victorian Government Schools Agreement (VGSA).
There’s a lot else wrong with the deal. It divides education staff, giving education support (ES) staff less than teachers and giving high-paid principals more.
28.3% sounds good, but it will only be a pay rise in real terms if inflation falls below 4% for the next three years. There’s no guarantee that’ll happen.
Currently, local leadership at many schools tell staff that they don’t have the money to meet key obligations under VGSA. They can’t afford emergency teachers to cover all vacancies, or enough teachers to comply with class size limits, or for ES to actually have a lunch break.
These pressures can be especially acute at schools with a more experienced teaching cohort, where there is little slack in the budget.
Winning guaranteed funding for all VGSA costs at each school would be a big step forward, making it easier for union sub branches to get equal conditions. It would also be a significant step towards resolving the disastrous under-funding of Victorian schools by state and federal Labor governments.
Winning these extra staff would make a very significant difference to many students.
So our current deed on teaching hours expires on 31 December 2027. This will be extended to cover the duration of the new VGSA. But if the Victorian government decides not to renew the deed upon expiry in a few years time, we will lose the conditions specified in the deed. We stand to lose conditions that make work bearable, conditions that make quality education possible.
If you’re wondering why 40,000 teachers and other staff were on the streets, that’s why. We’re barely catching up and still angry about previous deals that left us behind the eight ball.
Teachers are angry and were extremely uplifted by our single day of action. There is strong feeling that we should be increasing the action to two days or multiple rolling days and then again to three days if needed.
We need to demand that our union harness this feeling and immediately increase the days of action and increase the pressure on the Victorian Labor government for a proper offer.
