HUNDREDS of western suburbs teachers who walked off the job on Friday for better pay have vowed to keep fighting.
More than 300 teachers and school staff rallied outside the Sunshine office of Western Metropolitan Liberal MP Bernie Finn, coinciding with rolling half-day stoppages affecting about 80 schools across Wyndham, Hobsons Bay, Brimbank and Maribyrnong. Many schools closed until noon or operated with reduced staff.
The protesters rejected the state government’s offer of a 2.5 per cent pay rise and performance-based bonuses.
Teachers want an increase of 10 per cent, in line with Premier Ted Baillieu’s pledge to make Victorian teachers the highest paid in the country.
Grade 2 teacher at from Werribee’s Westgrove Primary School, Beau Lepp, said public schools could soon struggle to attract quality teachers unless salaries were raised.
“Broken promises will leave us with a really poor education system in Victoria, we’ll lose teachers to higher-paying states, and our literacy and numeracy rates will go down.”
Bayside P-12 College’s Robert Sieminski said the government’s offer was “effectively a cut in real terms”. He urged the government to commit to a 50 per cent reduction in teachers employed on short-term contracts and maximum class sizes of 20. “In the west, we have a higher proportion of disadvantaged students, and the best way to deal with them is smaller class sizes and more time to see students one-on-one, giving personalised advice and support,” he said.
Mr Finn said the government was pleased talks with the Australian Education Union had resumed, but protests “do little to demonstrate genuine commitment to these negotiations”.
