Victorian public school staff have escalated industrial action from today, as students return for Term 2, amid an ongoing dispute over pay, workload and school funding.
Teachers, principals and education support staff will implement a series of bans, including withholding written comments in student reports and refusing to implement new government initiatives in schools. Staff will also not attend some meetings or respond to Department of Education emails.
The escalation includes rolling half-day stopwork actions across the state, to occur region by region beginning in state budget week (The 2026-27 Victorian State Budget is scheduled to be delivered on Tuesday, 5 May 2026). These measures add to existing actions, including a ban on members of the Victorian Parliament from the Labor Party visiting schools.
The latest action follows a statewide full-day stop-work last term – the first in 13 years – which saw more than 35,000 public school staff march through Melbourne’s CBD and rally at Parliament.
Australian Education Union Victorian Branch President Mr Justin Mullaly said staff had been driven to escalate action due to low pay and what he described as inadequate funding for public schools.
“Victoria’s public school staff are overworked and undervalued, with the average school employee doing 12 hours of unpaid overtime a week and experienced teachers set to earn over $15,000 less than their NSW counterparts by October,” Mr Mullaly said.
He said the situation also affected principals and education support staff, who he described as underpaid.
Mr Mullaly called on the Victorian Government to fully fund public schools and deliver pay increases for staff, arguing this was necessary to address ongoing staffing shortages.
