When the leaders of the Australian Education Union (AEU) emailed members to announce that they were cancelling two weeks of planned half-day regional strikes—without the government having met our demands—they presumably thought school staff would passively accept this retreat. But the AEU leaders are instead facing a rank-and-file rebellion by teachers and school staff, prepared to fight for the teaching and learning conditions that they and students deserve.
To date, at least 25 schools and six regions, representing hundreds of primary and secondary schools across inner and outer Melbourne, have voted to condemn the leaders’ decision to cancel our strike action. Many more schools have also voted to demand further 24-hour statewide strikes, which would be an escalation from the regional half-day stopworks that the union has suspended. In many of these schools and regions, activists from Socialists in Schools, one of the many industry networks within Victorian Socialists, have played an important role arguing against the cancellations and for more industrial action.
For many teachers and school staff, the strike cancellations have transformed pent-up anger and frustration into outright rage—both at the Labor government’s contempt for public school students and staff, and at our own union leaders’ tendency to sell us short. AEU leaders love to remind us that we are the worst-paid educators in Australia in the lowest- funded schools. Yet their conciliatory approach to the Labor government means we are likely to stay this way.
At a 76-person emergency meeting organised by Socialists in Schools the day after the strike cancellations were communicated, rank-and-file union members met to coordinate a collective response. Longer-term members pointed out that the officials have form when it comes to selling members short—in 2022, they recommended members vote for a deal that drove real wages down by 11 percent.
The meeting drew two conclusions. First, the current AEU leaders cannot be trusted. They have a track record of selling subpar agreements. They have provided scant information about the supposed progress of current negotiations. And they call off strike action without any formal offer indicating that the government is willing to meet our demands—which include a 35 percent pay rise over three years for all staff, paid lunch breaks, clear role descriptions for education support staff, and an aide in every class. Second, we need stronger rank-and-file organisations to challenge officials’ influence and push for a more combative strategy.
The officials perhaps hoped that the rumour of a 28 percent pay rise, leaked recently by the government, would be enough to reassure members about the negotiations’ progress. They were wrong. The only thing we’ve learned from the rumour is that strikes work. Only after 40,000 teachers and school staff took to the streets and shut down many schools across the state on 24 March did the government offer us more than the disgraceful 17 and 13 percent pay increases they had originally slated for teachers and support staff.
That’s why the union’s backdown from regional half-day strikes—though already a de-escalation from the powerful, statewide shutdown in March—is a particularly shameful demonstration of just how unserious the union leaders are about fighting to achieve what members need and deserve.
Teachers’ desire to keep fighting has driven the rebellion in schools and regional meetings, in office chats and in rank-and-file organising meetings over the last two weeks. Regional meetings, which are usually staid affairs attended mostly by union officials and those closest to them, have swelled in numbers and become sites of riotous debate, with Socialists in Schools activists mobilising rank-and-file union members to attend and put the case for intensifying the campaign.
When union leaders have tried to lower members’ expectations and sneer at us for being “unrealistic” or “unreasonable” in pushing for serious improvements to our salaries and conditions in line with our log of claims, they have been challenged at every turn—and frequently derided—by rank-and-file activists.
One Socialists in Schools teacher at the recent LaTrobe/Plenty regional meeting reported that her workmates, who usually don’t attend these events, decided to attend this time. Seeing union officials “talking down to teachers for having opinions on industrial strategy”, she recalled, “my workmates just started scoffing every time they spoke”.
Another teacher at the Werribee regional meeting similarly described how refreshing it was to see an alternative proposal to the conciliatory strategy advocated by the AEU leaders, one based on solidarity between all school staff. “An education support worker was crying afterwards, telling me they had never felt so supported by members who don’t want anyone to be left behind”, she recalled.
Making the proceedings of these regional meetings public, as Socialists in Schools has done, is an important intervention into an industrial campaign in which union members have often been left in the dark. Comments on AEU social media—an accessible forum for members to ask questions, voice concerns and express disagreement—have been restricted or deleted. Members have also reported being blocked by the AEU on social media for posting dissenting remarks.
With the AEU branch council likely to put a subpar agreement to members, the rebellion of school staff can’t and won’t stop. Teachers and school staff want to keep fighting. So it’s time to organise together against a Labor government and union leadership intent on denying us the wages, conditions and quality public schools we all deserve.
Socialists in Schools will be at the Victorian Socialists forum against One Nation and the far right this Saturday, 16 May, 3pm at Coburg Town Hall. Get your ticket and meet us there.
