AEU Stopwork News

School staff pay and conditions and continuing industrial action

Term 2, 2026

As parents and carers know, staff at our school who are members of the Australian Education Union (AEU) have been involved in long-running negotiations with the state government and the Department of Education for improved pay and conditions.

Despite an increased number of ongoing negotiations and the commencement of industrial action, including the statewide full day stopwork last term, there is still no fair offer on the table to address the key issues facing public school staff. Victoria’s public schools remain the lowest funded in the country, teachers are the lowest paid, with education support staff and school leaders underpaid as well. School staff also continue to face significant workload pressures.  Staffing shortages continue to be experienced in public schools across the state.

As part of the campaign, AEU members will be taking further industrial action, including half-day stopworks on a rolling, region-by-region basis. This means each school will be affected once. We understand this can cause disruption for students and families.  Staff are taking this action because they care deeply about public education and want to see our schools properly funded, and to receive fair pay and conditions, all of which are critical to a prosperous future for Victoria’s public school students.

Union members at Newlands Primary School will stop work for half a day on Wednesday, May 6. We will continue to keep families informed about any action that may affect our school community.