All sectors From your president: Achieving together what you can’t achieve alone

Better pay and conditions and more funding for members across early childhood, schools and TAFE is the union’s focus in 2025.

Pay rises and improved conditions for EC members
We will be ramping up our campaign for a new agreement for members in community and local government-run kindergarten programs. Last year, the AEU won increases of 15% over two years for members in early childhood and care settings. Gains like this are needed for all EC members. With the two main agreements (VECTA and EEEA) nominally expiring last September, we will commence a full industrial campaign if needed to ensure the government delivers decent pay rises and reduced workloads.

Massive school funding win
After more than 15 years of campaigning by union members and public education supporters, the Commonwealth and Victorian governments have agreed to jointly deliver 100% of the Schooling Resource Standard to our public schools. As the funding flows over the next 10 years, it means more resources than ever to meet the needs of members and students, attract and retain school staff, and better address workforce shortages. It is unlikely that Peter Dutton would deliver full funding for public schools if elected, given the Liberals’ track record, so the AEU will campaign to defend this fundamentally important funding.

Securing a new TAFE agreement
Members will soon vote on a new TAFE teacher agreement delivering a minimum 21% increase over four years to 2027, including a 14% increase in the first 14 months. The top rate for a classroom-based TAFE teacher will grow to $134,775 by the end of the agreement. Negotiations started more than two and a half years ago, with TAFE members taking industrial action throughout 2024. The in-principle agreement also increases planning and curriculum time by a third to help address excessive workloads. 

Negotiations for a new schools agreement
Right now, through the AEU log of claims process, every member in schools can have their say on the improvements to pay and conditions they want to see in the next Schools Agreement. Members deserve significant pay rises, reduced workloads, smaller class sizes, less meetings and more professional respect. Ensuring our salary claims match the value of your work is essential. As a guide, by year’s end, a graduate teacher in WA will be earning $88,178; a classroom teacher at the top of the scale $127,737; and senior teachers with additional responsibilities will be on $132,557. In NSW, by the end of 2026, a graduate teacher will earn $92,882, and a top-the-scale teacher will be on $133,422. 

Education Minister needs to address shortages
When the latest government data shows increasing attrition, it beggars belief that Education Minister Ben Carroll is not doing more to retain existing teachers. The number of primary teachers leaving the profession has risen to 5.6%, up from 3.4% in 2021; secondary teacher attrition is at 8%, up from 4.7% in 2021. It’s time the Minister acted. The AEU will continue to call for retention payments as a measure to help keep teachers in public schools.  

Review into excessive admin needs to deliver
For too long, the Department has barely considered workloads associated with implementing policies and initiatives – new and old. On top of recent marginal improvements, the review into admin and compliance, finalised at the end of 2024, is an opportunity for the Department to better support your work, not just expect more. We will continue to demand improvements.

Supporting you to support students
With more students demonstrating complex and challenging behaviours than ever before, where is the commensurate increase in support for principals, teachers and ES? As you know, such student behaviour can not only add to your workload, it can affect your health and safety, and the learning and wellbeing of other students. The union is calling on the Department to do better. 

Becoming a Friend of Treaty
The AEU is currently going through the process of becoming a ‘Friend of Treaty for Victoria’. This is an important step for our union, with statewide Treaty negotiations underway between the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria and the Victorian government. Our union must stand in solidarity with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members to achieve justice, with recognition of sovereignty and self-determination at the core – and we will.

Together we are stronger. With a long list of things to achieve this year, the work of the AEU is more important than ever. Ask a colleague to join you as a union member today!