A significant rebellion has unfolded in the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union over ratification of the new Victorian Government Schools Agreement (VGSA). Thirty-nine percent of delegates elected from school-based sub-branches voted against ratification of the new VGSA, which governs the pay and conditions of more than 70,000 teachers and education support staff in Victorian government schools. In the greater Melbourne area, 44 percent of delegates voted no. This is more than double the no vote in the 2017 VGSA ratification, when only 18 percent of sub-branch delegates voted against ratification, with 82 percent in favour.
The sizeable no vote shows a split between large sections of the membership and the Victorian leadership of the union. The new VGSA was endorsed unanimously by the union’s Victorian State Council. Union officials and organisers spent weeks speaking at meetings to get their agreement across the line. 
The union leaders ridiculed the idea that voting no could be the start of a serious industrial campaign to win better conditions. They claimed that negotiators would have to return to the very start of the year-long process that led to the proposed agreement, meaning no pay rises for the indefinite future. 
That nearly 40 percent of delegates (823 out of 2,095 votes cast) voted to reject the deal is a major achievement for the many rank-and-file unionists who dedicated time and energy to <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/victorian-teachers-deserve-better">arguing against the proposed agreement</a>. These activists are the key to the significant oppositional vote.
There had been consistent advocacy by some AEU members in the leadup to this bargaining round about the crucial importance of workload concerns. As a result, many sub-branches passed motions calling for a reduction in face-to-face teaching. 
Once the proposed agreement was on the table, a group of activists who had come together to organise for better COVID-19 protections in schools produced a <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1j-ssQBd5Wx-zY8y5SqP0vgraBbnKTvz9XoROrZ40ZFU/edit">document analysing the proposed new VGSA</a>, comparing the ambitious AEU log of claims with the actual poor result. This was shared in dozens of schools, helping to increase the confidence of many who felt that the proposed agreement sold them short. 
A key issue fuelling the significant no vote was pay. The VGSA promises annual pay rises of only 2 percent—when inflation last year ran at 3.5 percent, petrol is now more than $2 a litre, and pretty much every business in the country is talking about more price rises to come. Allowances worth an extra 2 percent in the first year, and a one-off increase of around 10 percent for low paid education support staff took some of the edge off this low headline rate—but still left plenty of room for discontent. 
One of the demands in the union’s <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/victorian-school-staff-need-fight-workloads-and-wages">log of claims</a> was that the Victorian government fund schools adequately, to enable the conditions in the agreement to be properly implemented. The importance of full funding was brought home by the revelation that one of the significant benefits promised by the new agreement—time in lieu for staff attending school camps and other out-of-hours excursions—was not accompanied by any extra funding for schools. This would leave school-level management to either find the money by sacrificing the school budget elsewhere, or charge parents and guardians prohibitive fees for the activities, which would exclude students from less well-off households.
The main issue for teachers was workload. After a long campaign by union members, this is the first agreement that promises to significantly cut classroom teaching time—by 90 minutes per week by 2024. However, the four annual professional practice days introduced in the last VGSA to assist with workload issues would be reduced to one day per year, and there is a sunset clause on the 90-minute reduction, which is not included in the VGSA itself but in a side agreement.
Though COVID-19 doesn’t feature much in the agreement or the debates around it, it’s arguable that the pandemic also played a role in the significant no vote. Despite the extremely tough conditions school staff have endured during the last two years, COVID-19 has not to date generated much rank-and-file reaction. This is no doubt partly due to a global pandemic seeming well-nigh unstoppable, especially with governments largely “letting it rip” (including in Victoria) and unions doing little to distance themselves from state government employers.
However, a set-piece contest over wages and conditions can provide an outlet for some of the discontent felt over the effects of the virus. To come through the last two years, face ongoing threats to health on a daily basis, and then to be offered only 2 percent more pay was the last straw for many union members. 
So there is plenty of fuel for discontent in schools, as in many other workplaces. State governments’ self-imposed pay caps (2.5 percent including superannuation in New South Wales, 1.5 percent in Victoria) are colliding with the reality of rising inflation—and the knowledge that while the working class has battled through the pandemic, billionaires have <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-17/oxfam-report-covid-pandemic-billionaires-increase-fortune/100760968">doubled their wealth</a> over the past two years.
But to turn this discontent into organised opposition will require much work. Rank-and-file activism and networking is crucial because it cuts against the isolation of more active or politicised union members in our individual workplaces. This is certainly the case with the AEU.
There are functioning union sub-branches in many hundreds of schools in Victoria, but there is little coordination or even connection between active unionists in them. This leaves any connection between sub-branches in the hands of the central office, which is subject to conservative and bureaucratic pressures. 
Adding to the weight of the officials in pushing a deal through is the general decline in industrial action—the product of well-organised class collaboration and vicious anti-strike laws—which reduces the self-confidence of the rank and file. And the general decline of the left over recent decades means there are fewer politicised militants like those who formed the basis for serious rank-and-file challenges in the past. It is no coincidence that some of the most active networks in the agitation around the VGSA included long term socialists (including members of Socialist Alternative, which publishes Red Flag) who had the political confidence and organising skills to help challenge the conservative approach of the officials.
Obviously, the opposition fell short on this occasion. The proposed new agreement will now be put to an all-staff ballot. The state government and union leaders will be at a considerable advantage in pushing the deal through, given that non-union members also get a vote. 
The networks of active opponents to the deal simply weren’t extensive enough to carry an argument across the state’s 1,500 government schools and 29 regional ratification meetings. Nevertheless, it’s an impressive achievement that a collection of loosely organised unionists could help turn the vote into a contest, and win over almost 40 percent of members, in spite of the vigorous efforts of the union leaders. 
Regardless of the outcome, the significant no vote is a step forward for unionists in education and beyond. It signals the possibility of effective opposition to employers and union leaders who try to push through substandard agreements on a workforce that’s been slammed by the pandemic. The union members who organised, spoke and voted against the deal have shown unionists everywhere that there is nothing inevitable about such deals being pushed through—and they’ve created a foundation to build on in rebuilding an active voice for rank-and-file union members in the future.

AEU members

Big ‘no’ vote a step forward for school staff

Two years into a pandemic which has greatly increased the workload and stress of school staff, the Australian Education Union and the Victorian Government have reached an agreement that will most likely mean a pay cut for teachers in real terms.
Australia’s billionaires have <a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/aussie-billionaires-double-wealth-during-covid19-oxfam-report/dc42301d-0c56-4519-9302-92bc918ea49c">doubled their wealth</a> during the COVID-19 pandemic, while teachers and other front line workers have worked long hours, many unpaid, to keep education and other services going. Yet Victorian teachers are being asked to accept a headline pay rise of just 1 percent every six months under the new Victorian Government Schools Agreement, <a href="https://www.aeuvic.asn.au/aeu-members-win-historical-agreement-victorian-public-school-staff?fbclid=IwAR06NUomVUR3STHQoXUEQzWtVPvYQuTP-3BRgQELDoCLFc-mpuIj2itC104">announced</a> on 4 February 2022.
Inflation in Australia <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/consumer-price-index-australia/latest-release">rose</a> to 3.5 percent last year as the price of petrol and housing jumped. Comparable economies are also seeing a sharp increase in inflation—it’s currently at 5.4 percent in the <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/inflation-cpi#:~:text=Highest%20since%201992-,Annual%20inflation%20rate%20in%20the%20UK%20increased%20to%205.4%25%20in,base%20effect%20from%20last%20year.">UK</a> and 7 percent in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jan/12/us-inflation-rate-december-2021">US</a>.
The proposed agreement includes a new annual “position allowance” of 1 percent of salary, and includes a one-off classification restructure worth 0.95 percent for most teachers. Even taking these payments into account, Victorian teachers will see their pay go backwards in real terms if inflation continues at the current rate—and will be locked into a four-year deal, even if inflation picks up from here.
The pandemic has taken a toll on Victorian teachers, who have had to juggle between remote learning and unsafe classrooms, which have caused some of the most significant COVID-19 outbreaks in the state. As a result, many teachers have left the profession, leading to unprecedented staff shortages. There are more than 600 teaching and 500 educational support staff job listings on the Department of Education and Training website, while the shortage of casual relief teachers experienced last year continues. This situation will likely get worse as COVID-19 continues to spread through schools.
The solutions offered by the Department have been woefully inadequate—calling for retired and inactive teachers to return to work to pick up the slack, and drawing up a new operations guide directing teachers to cover shortages by teaching students en masse in school gymnasiums. It is a recipe for disaster. The concentration of classes in gyms risks further spread of the virus. And the idea that this will help repair the educational damage caused by prolonged school closures is laughable.
The renewal of the agreement should be an opportunity to improve working conditions and prevent a further exodus of staff. The <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/victorian-school-staff-need-fight-workloads-and-wages">initial log of claims</a> from the union was commendable. Most notably, it included a reduction in face-to-face teaching by 2 and 4.5 hours a week for secondary and primary teachers respectively. It further aimed to reduce workloads via a class cap of 20 students. Another important claim was for each school to be funded at a level which would allow the conditions in the agreement to actually be delivered. Too often, staff are told that “there’s no money in the budget” at a school level to relieve pressure on workloads.
The union was also pushing for a significant increase in the salaries of education support staff (ES). These workers provide essential support for students with disabilities, as well as administration and other roles. Most education support staff are currently stuck on the lowest pay point—with an annual salary starting at $47,672 per year, just over half of average full-time earnings in Australia. In practice, many are paid even less due to shorter working hours. For teaching staff, the log of claims was asking for a real pay rise above inflation. If the new agreement had included the union’s claims, it would have been an important step towards making teaching more manageable.
Unfortunately however, changes in the proposed agreement fall well short of the log of claims and will do little to address the appalling conditions that are driving teachers to leave the profession. The claim for funding at a level that enables the VGSA to be implemented has disappeared without a trace. The union is trumpeting the reduction in teaching hours, emphasising that it is the first time in 30 years that such a condition has been won, but the reduction is less than what teachers hoped for—just 1.5 hours per week for all teachers which will be phased in over two years. And three out of the four “professional practice days” introduced in the 2017 agreement to ease workloads will be scrapped, which will take even more off the shine from the reduced hours of weekly classroom teaching. The other claim that would have reduced workloads—a reduction in class sizes—was abandoned altogether.
A further problem is that the reduction in hours that has been agreed on is not written into the new agreement, but outlined in a separate deed which expires in 2027. Though the deed commits the government to using the reduced hours of work as “a starting point” for negotiations in the next agreement, what matters in a negotiation is not the “starting point” but the end point. So the deed is a weaker level of protection for crucial conditions like hours, compared to having it written into the agreement itself. This is especially the case if the government decides that the state budget needs “repair” in the meantime.
Several other important conditions are also included in the side commitments between the union and the Department, rather than in the agreement itself. One is the annual conversion of fixed term staff to ongoing roles—the subject of a<a href="https://www.aeuvic.asn.au/schools-agreement-2017-commitments-arising-negotiations"> </a><a href="https://www.aeuvic.asn.au/schools-agreement-2017-commitments-arising-negotiations">side agreement</a> to the 2017 enterprise agreement—which will remain outside the new agreement. Another side agreement stipulates that the Department “undertakes to consult” on a notorious clause of the VGSA which allows schools to employ fixed term staff (rather than ongoing) for “any other reason considered appropriate by the Employer”. The Department has made similar side commitments regarding the conditions of school council employees and on the provision of laptops to educational support staff.
The deed governing hours of face-to-face teaching looks to be enforceable (though it would require a case in the Victorian Supreme Court, not the familiar process through the VGSA disputes process leading to Fair Work). However the legal status of these other “commitments” is less than clear—they certainly don’t seem to be enforceable, which means a change in government, or government policy, could put all of these conditions in jeopardy.
For staff salaries, the proposed agreement would transfer most educational support staff to a higher classification (range 2). For the very lowest paid ES workers, this would give an immediate pay rise of $5,101, or around 10 percent. Before we start gushing though, remember that if inflation of 3.5 percent, this will mean prices rising by nearly 15 percent over the next four years. And educational support staff, along with everyone else, last received a pay rise (of just 1.75 percent) in October 2020. Lunch breaks (which educational support staff are often forced to work through) remain unpaid, leaving an important part of the ES claim unfulfilled. And the wording on progression—which usually gives an annual increment for teachers but not for ES—is unchanged. In summary, this is no great breakthrough on ES pay.
 The extra salt on the wound is the proposed teachers’ salaries, a dismal 1 percent wage increase every six months. This is boosted by a 1 percent classification adjustment at the start of the agreement (presumably in compensation for the lack of recent pay rises), and a new “position allowance” of slightly less than 1 percent of salary. But the only increase in other years of the agreement will be two 1 percent increases each year. The wage increase remains well below the 3.25 percent per annum from the last enterprise agreement, though national inflation has doubled to 3.5 percent.
School staff—and our students—deserve better than a likely pay cut for most teachers, a pay rise that’s far from ground-breaking for underpaid ES staff, and a “breakthrough” on hours that will have to be fought for all over again when the next agreement is negotiated. But if we want better, we’ll have to fight for it.
The high point of industrial action during the negotiation of this agreement was ES staff refusing to work through their unpaid lunch breaks (!!), a ban on ministers attending schools, and restrictions on meetings. A serious “vote no” campaign has to be the first step in a fightback, one which will need to culminate in strikes if it is to make any real breakthroughs on wages and workload.
The announcement of the proposed agreement has sparked widespread concern and opposition from union members. Responses on social media have been overwhelmingly negative, with comments on the union’s Facebook page referring to the 2 percent annual pay increase as a “kick in the guts”, and others saying they would be cancelling their membership. But we need all our members to stick around and build a “vote no” campaign against this proposed agreement, as well as to organise real industrial action that gives us the best chance to win the conditions we deserve.

Big ‘no’ vote a step forward for school staff

Victorian teachers deserve better

Other Media

Shop

Manage Your Subscription

Contact Us