State school teachers threaten to strike as pay talks stall

Teachers at Victoria’s 1600 government schools say they will walk off the job for one day next month if the state Labor government fails to make a “reasonable” pay offer.

The Australian Education Union (AEU) said the strike, the first generalised shutdown of the state school system since 2013, would go ahead on March 24 if the government continued to “disrespect” its education workforce.

A gathering of 100 union delegates at the AEU’s Collingwood HQ on Friday voted to proceed with the action if the government does not formally respond to the union’s log of claims lodged in June 2025.

The talks on pay and conditions for the state’s 52,000 government school teachers have been underway since last year, with the union growing increasingly vocal about the lack of progress in the negotiations and mounting evidence of the underfunding of public schools.

The union had sought a 35 per cent pay increase over three years, with a 14 per cent increase in the first year alone, arguing a big upfront pay rise was needed to put teachers’ wages in the state on par with their peers around the country.

The AEU previously linked Victoria’s relatively poor pay for teachers to chronic staff shortages in state schools, leading to increasingly heavy workloads. The union’s state branch president, Justin Mullaly, said a significant pay rise would attract more graduates and bring teachers who had left the profession back into the fold.

Victorian graduate teachers are the worst paid in the country, earning $13,000 less than the country’s best-paid graduates in the Northern Territory and $8700 less than those in NSW.

The Victorian government had yet to make a counter-offer to the union’s claims.

A ballot of the schools workforce, which has been in a militant mood for several years, had begun, and majority support for protected industrial action would pave the way for the threatened shutdown.

Mullaly, confident that the ballot process would produce a pro-strike majority, said the industrial action would go ahead if the government failed to come up with a reasonable pay offer by March 24.

“We have been negotiating in good faith with the Allan Labor government to deliver the salaries and conditions that school staff need,” Mullaly said.

“Their failure to come to the table with an offer is downright disrespectful.”

The union first raised the spectre of strike action in April, last year, in pursuit of its demand for pay rises for 52,000 Victorian government school educators.

A state government spokesperson said it was disappointing for parents who stood to lose a day’s pay by staying home with their children if the action goes ahead.

“We will continue to negotiate in good faith,” they said.

“We have always said teachers, education support staff and principals deserve better pay and conditions.”

Education Minister Ben Carroll had previously said he too believed Victorian teachers deserved to be paid on par with their interstate counterparts.

“I do believe our teachers are some of the most hardworking, talented in the nation. And I do believe they should have competitive wages with their interstate counterparts,” the minister said in April.

Opposition education spokesman Brad Rowswell criticised the government for risking school closures.

“The premier and minister for education must urgently resolve this dispute and ensure students’ learning does not suffer further due to Labor’s mismanagement.”

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