‘Best paid in the country’: Teacher deal to push top wages above $150,000

Victoria’s teachers’ union has struck an in-principle deal with the Allan government that would deliver pay rises of up to 32.4 per cent over four years, in a move Labor hopes will avert further strike action.

The union leadership will attempt to convince its 60,000 members to vote for the offer, with branch president Justin Mullaly saying on Friday that a series of half-day strikes scheduled across the state throughout May and June would remain on hold while the proposal was put to a ballot.

The Australian Education Union’s (AEU) Victorian Branch Council voted on Friday afternoon to endorse the agreement that the union leadership said would boost the pay of an experienced teacher from $118,063 to $151,419 by 2029.

But the 32.4 per cent figure applies only to those at the bottom of the pay scale, with the pay increase sliding down to 28.3 per cent for teachers in the upper brackets.

The deal on offer also contains an extra four student-free days each year, up from the current five, but not the decrease in face-to-face teaching time demanded in the teachers’ log of claims.

Mullaly said the deal would make the wages of Victorian teachers – currently the lowest paid public education workforce in the nation – competitive with their interstate counterparts.

“It’s an agreement that does what members sought us to do, and that’s to lift us from the bottom of the pile, up towards the top,” the union leader said.

“A Victorian teacher at the top of the scale, by October, will go past their New South Wales counterpart.

“That’s over a $15,000 increase.

“That same teacher will go from $118,000 to over $151,000, more than $33,000 over the life of the agreement.

“I think any worker would think that’s a pretty good deal.”

At a parliamentary hearing on Friday afternoon, Premier Jacinta Allan also confirmed the agreement.

“I am really pleased to advise the committee that we will be supporting and making our hardworking teachers and school leaders and education staff the best paid in the country,” she said.

The AEU also endorsed an offer to boost the pay of early childhood educators by 39.1 per cent on average over four years.

But some delegates at Friday’s union meeting were already mobilising, as Mullaly was speaking to journalists, to campaign for a no-vote.

Caitlin Wood, a teacher from Footscray Primary School were union members had voted to condemn the suspensions of the strikes,

More to come

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