The head of the state’s powerful education union has threatened more teacher strikes, saying educators will again walk off the job if they don’t get a better pay-and-conditions deal from the Allan government.
The new threat came as tens of thousands of Victorian state school educators walked out of classrooms and on to the streets of Melbourne CBD on Thursday.
It was their second 24-hour strike over pay and conditions since March, causing a new round of logistical pressure for parents despite major parents groups saying they supported the reasons behind the action.
Addressing the crowd, Australian Education Union Victorian president Justin Mullaly said Premier Jacinta Allan and Education Minister Ben Carroll were taking teachers’ goodwill for granted and did not have teachers’ backs.
“So here we are in our tens of thousands, and more, and we’re standing together. We are standing united. We are union-proud, and we are union-powerful,” he said.
“And we’re ready to send a loud, loud message to this state government.”
Mr Mullaly promised more industrial action if the government did not deliver a better offer.
“We’ll be back here on Spring Street,” he said standing outside Parliament of Victoria.
“We will escalate our campaign, if we need to. We will stop work again.
“We need to keep the pressure on this government, to get the outcome that we need to see, that Victoria needs to see.”
Victoria Police said about 20,000 people attended Thursday’s protest, well short of the 30,000 figure put forward by the AEU, and the 35,000 who attended the March strike, according to police.
The smaller protest could reflect the narrowing of the latest vote in which a slim majority of 51.18 per cent were against the deal, along with the ongoing toll of the year-long negotiations.
But an AEU spokeswoman said: “We respectfully disagree with the crowd estimate based on a comparison with the rally in March”.
The union also shot back at comments from Mr Carroll who has said his door is open for negotiations, with the AEU saying it had not heard from the government, and no meetings between negotiators were scheduled.
The AEU will also publish an open letter to Victorian families in the Herald Sun on Friday highlighting the impact of more than a decade of underfunding of the state’s schools on students and educators.
Mr Mullaly said it was important families understood why teachers were taking industrial action including strikes.
“Right now, Victoria’s public schools are the lowest funded in the country,” Mr Mullaly says in the letter.
“But instead of getting our schools on a pathway to full funding like they promised the Premier and her cabinet have deliberately cut $2.4 billion from public schools.”
Teachers walk from Bourke St Mall to parliament
As their year-long bitter dispute with the state government intensifies, including knocking back three offers, vocal teachers, principals, and education support staff wearing red left the Bourke Street Mall about 10.45am and headed to Parliament House.
The crowd walked yelling chants including “what do we want? A fair deal? When do we want it? Now!”
Kat, 35, said her poor teaching conditions were students’ learning conditions.
“The government hasn’t listened to what we’ve been asking for,” she said.
“We want less face-to-face, we want smaller class sizes, we want an agreement that’s paid over three years and not dragged out over five.
“It’s not all about the money, but our teaching conditions are students’ learning conditions and right now, that agreement isn’t covering that, and it’s not a good offer.”
Others sung “Ben Carroll, goodbye!” and “excessive workloads have to go”.
Katherine, 43, said she was spending more time with other children than her own.
“I’ve been teaching for over 15 years and in all honesty, these work conditions are getting worse,” she said.
“The workload’s getting too much.
“We’re losing our weekends, we have children, and we’re spending more time with other people’s children and looking and catering for their needs rather than our own kids.”
Prep student Matilda, 6, whose mum Jess Robinson is a secondary teacher and grandmother, Pam, is a principal, attended the strike holding a sign saying, ‘I love my teachers’, complete with a picture of a teacher holding a dollar coin.
Ms Robinson, who went on strike despite supporting the latest pay deal because she wants improvements to workplace conditions, said she was proud of her daughter’s support for educators, especially her prep teacher, Miranda, who Matilda said worked “really hard”.
“She’s got lots of teachers around. She’s definitely heard a lot about it,” Ms Robinson said.
Carroll: Disruption is ‘disappointing’
In a statement released Thursday morning, Mr Carroll said he was disappointed by the disruptions caused to families.
“Families are already juggling a lot, and today’s disruption is disappointing,” he said.
“This deal would have made Victorian teachers and education support staff the best paid in the country together with the best conditions.
“This was a close vote and we will continue to work with the AEU to resolve this matter.”
Socialists in Schools: ‘This is the time to draw a line’
Among the crowds of educators are members of Fight the Crisis and Socialists in Schools — two unionised campaign groups that have mounted successful ‘vote no’ campaigns and are pushing for another strike on August 4 unless an agreement is reached.
Speaking from the march, Socialists in Schools spokeswoman and teacher Liz Walsh said more than 80 staff members had walked off the job at Keilor Downs Secondary College — the largest ever to strike.
“Despite the narrative, the fight isn’t wavering. This is the time to draw a line in the sand and say enough is enough. We are going to use our industrial power to fight for our schools and our students. Labor have failed our public schools,” she said.
Fight the Crisis spokeswoman Lucy Honan said the city was “crawling with red T-shirts”.
“This isn’t about greed. It’s about fighting for the schools our students deserve,” she said.
“Today feels like hope, it feels like we have a bit of space to dream. We want to do our jobs to the best of our ability.”
But while an estimated tens of thousands took to the streets, other educators posting in online teacher chat sites have said they could not afford to lose pay by striking.
“I’m a single parent barely getting by with a mortgage, bills and living expenses… Plain and simply, I cannot afford to strike because if I do. we will not have any food for the next fortnight. I live pay to pay,” one said.
The strike finished around 11:45am, with crowds dispersing across the CBD.
Public-school classrooms across the state were emptied on Thursday as entire year levels of students stayed at home and schools battled to run reduced lessons or provide only supervision for a limited number of students.
Parents Victoria chief executive Gail McHardy said after many months of negotiations, parents were tired of uncertainty and wanted the AEU and the government to reach an agreement that provided long-term stability for students, parents, and school staff.
But Ms McHardy said many families understood why educators were striking and backed their calls for the government to deliver on their commitment to fully fund Victorian schools to 100 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS).
“Every child deserves to attend a school that is properly resourced, and every teacher deserves to work in a system that can support them to work to their full potential,” she said.
Rowswell: ‘Yet another Ben Carroll and Labor failure’
Victorian opposition education spokesman Brad Rowswell said the strike was the result of “yet another Ben Carroll and Labor failure”.
“The wannabe Premier has now overseen a $2.4 billion cut from school funding, an ongoing teacher shortage crisis and two consecutive years of VCE exam debacles,” he said.
The strike follows a year of failed negotiations between the AEU and the state government with three offers, including pay rises of at least 28.3 per cent and a reduction in meeting time from 80 to 40 hours, knocked back by educators since March.
The latest offer was rejected by a slim majority of 51.18 per cent.
The push for a new Victorian Government Schools Agreement has been marred by union infighting and verbal stoushes between Mr Mullaly and Mr Carroll including claims of “anti-union” behaviour by Mr Carroll in reaching out directly to teachers in a desperate bid to get the deal done.
Teachers want a 35 per cent pay increase over three — not four — years to help retain and attract educators, reduced class sizes, less administration requirements, and for the state to commit, as all other states and territories already have, to full funding under the SRS — a delay which has effectively stripped $2.4 billion of funding out of Victoria’s state schools.
A Monash University study shows teachers do about 12 hours of unpaid overtime each week.