“A shame”: Victorian teachers are preparing to strike as a last-ditch effort for fairer pay claims

Teachers, education support staff and principals across Victoria are set to fight for better pay and work conditions later this year, after the Fair Work Commission (FWC) gave the green light for workers across the sector to launch strike action.

What happened: Earlier this week, the Allan Government bid to interrupt the union's request for a vote on industrial action.

• However, FWC deputy president William Richard Clancy decided to approve the AEU Victorian branch’s bid, with matters between the State Government and the AEU Victorian branch discussed and resolved in a meeting on Wednesday.

🗳️ Why the vote? Before a union launches a request to take lawful strike action on behalf of a group of employees, they must first seek the approval of the FWC to undertake a vote, with all members eligible to either vote for or against the proposed strike action.

• The proposed strike action can then only go ahead if at least 50 percent of members voted and more than 50% voted in favour of the industrial action.

🗓️How’d we get here: The dispute between the government and education union dates back to July last year, when the AEU first called for the Allan Government to deliver a 35 percent pay increase and improved conditions over three years.

• In May 2025, the State Government announced it would only contribute 70.43 percent of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) – an estimate of how much total public funding a school needs to meet its student’s needs – in 2026 and delay reaching the 75 percent target until 2031. This would leave a $663 million annual shortfall.

💰Hard conditions, unfair pay claims: Salary forecasts predict that if a new agreement is not put in place by October this year, experienced Victorian teachers will receive up to $15,359 below what their NSW equivalents make annually.

• According to a survey conducted by Monash University of 8,000 AEU Victorian branch members, Victorian public school employees work about 12-and-a-half hours of unpaid overtime per week, on average.

🪧Union reaction: In a statement released on Tuesday, AEU Victorian branch president Justin Mullaly said the government’s inability to reach a compromise before the 2026 school year was “downright disrespectful”.

• “This is completely unacceptable and breaks Premier Allan’s promise to fully and fairly fund our schools,” said Mullaly.

🧑‍🏫 High turnover: Elise Walker, a single mother of three and a teacher working in a State Government primary school in the south-eastern suburbs, told the Eastern Melburnian it was “absolutely ludicrous” that she could not afford to buy a two-bedroom house in her local area with a four-year degree.

• Walker said the main issue was a lack of incentives for teachers to stay in what had become a “very toxic environment”, with teachers being burnt out by the growing need to manage students’ behaviour while also being undermined by the media, parents and broader society.

• 🗣️ “I feel like it's a shame that we've had to resort to this type of industrial action,” Walker told the Eastern Melburnian. “We're investing in a whole new group of people to be qualified and that's thousands and thousands of dollars, only for them to leave. It's kind of like a bucket with holes in it and you keep trying to fill the bucket up, but you're not trying to plug the holes.”

🏛️ Government reaction: A spokesperson for the State Government said “negotiations with teacher and principal unions [were] being undertaken in good faith to ensure the right outcome is achieved” for students and staff across all state schools.

• Since 2019, the State Government has invested more than $1.8 billion towards improving the school workforce, including the delivery of 14,000 registered teachers since 2020.