{"id":52344,"date":"2026-07-17T03:40:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T03:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/52344\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T03:40:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T03:40:31","slug":"victorian-government-tries-to-head-off-teacher-strike-with-new-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/52344\/","title":{"rendered":"Victorian government tries to head off teacher strike with new offer"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Victorian government has made a new pay offer to state school teachers in a bid to avoid another major strike next week.<\/p>\n

But the Australian Education Union (AEU) has accused the government of trying to bypass the union and go straight to employees with the offer.<\/p>\n

The government said its new offer amounts to a 28.3 per cent raise for teachers, principals and support staff over the next four years.<\/p>\n

It includes an initial 12.75 per cent increase by October 2026.<\/p>\n

“More than 90,000 full-time teachers will earn over $1,000 more per month by October this year and almost $3,000 more per month by 2030, and education support staff will earn $1,600 more per month by 2030,” Education Minister Ben Carroll said.<\/p>\n

“The revised offer aligns education support staff wage increases to teachers.”<\/p>\n

Mr Carroll urged the AEU to put the offer to members and call off a 24-hour strike planned for next week.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Ben Carroll has urged the AEU to call off a planned strike. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

The government said the new offer also cuts required meeting hours from 80 hours a year to 40 hours a year and gives principals “greater flexibility on meetings”.<\/p>\n

“Less time in meetings means more time to focus on students,” Mr Carroll said.<\/p>\n

“Our most experienced teachers at the top of the scale will also be given an annual lump sum payment.”<\/p>\n

The AEU said it was advised of the new offer late last night and will meet to discuss the offer late this afternoon.<\/p>\n

AEU Victoria president Justin Mullaly said the offer included “some improvements”, but he could not say whether the union would endorse it.<\/p>\n

“I do know it’s a significant offer though, there’s no doubt about that and I’ve been saying that since the first offer,” he told ABC Radio Melbourne.<\/p>\n

Mr Mullaly said the union’s executive council would discuss whether to continue with next week’s strike.<\/p>\n

He accused the government of trying to bypass the union and go straight to employees with the offer.<\/p>\n

“The government has outdone itself in this move because, whilst they’ve put something to us, they’ve actually gone around the union as well,” Mr Mullaly said.<\/p>\n

“They’ve been pretty anti-union in the way they’ve delivered this offer.”\"Teachers<\/p>\n

Victorian state school teachers went on strike for the first time in 13 years earlier this year. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, the AEU said public school teachers would hold another 24-hour strike on July 23.<\/a><\/p>\n

In June, Victorian teachers went against AEU advice<\/a> and voted down a pay rise of up to 32 per cent.<\/p>\n

In March, teachers and supporters took statewide strike action<\/a>, marching to parliament in central Melbourne, with police estimating 35,000 people were in attendance.<\/p>\n

The March strike was the first of its kind since AEU members took statewide industrial action in 2013 when negotiations with the Baillieu Coalition government broke down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Victorian government has made a new pay offer to state school teachers in a bid to avoid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[12688,2307,260,38063,38061,15850,5473,68,38062],"class_list":["post-52344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-ben-carroll","tag-education","tag-melbourne","tag-primary-schools","tag-teacher-pay-offer","tag-teacher-strike","tag-teachers","tag-victoria","tag-victorian-teachers-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}