From the AEU

Today is Public Education Day, a day on which we can celebrate the importance of state schools, while also demanding they receive the federal funding they need and deserve. We've been out and about today, launching our Fair Funding Now! campaign, which we intend to make a key election issue in the months ahead. Please sign up to get on board with the campaign.

I want to use this occasion to express my thanks to principals, teachers and support staff in public schools for their work and commitment. You are what makes our public schools worth fighting for.

Following our successful principals conference two weeks ago, tomorrow we will host our annual reps conference. If your school has reps attending, thank you for facilitating their attendance. As always, the purpose is to inspire and encourage our reps, which feels particularly important given this is an important election year. With the state election due in November and the possibility of a federal election any time after August, we need to make sure our members' voices are heard.

The AEU is determined to ensure all our schools receive Fair Funding Now! Principals know better than most the difference this would make. We can lobby but it is the power of collective action that delivers results.

The translation of 10,030 school staff from insecure to ongoing work didn’t happen overnight. It was through the efforts of our members – attending and making submissions to the Insecure Work Inquiry, ensuring it was front and centre in our log of claims ahead of the enterprise agreement negotiations, and keeping it on the table during the enterprise agreement discussions – we delivered an outcome.

Our I Give A Gonski campaign, which helped deliver much-needed funding into schools was another reminder of the power a union of 50,000 members has in making our issues become the ones that change votes. 
 

Our Fair Funding Now! campaign is continuing that good work and we'll be talking about it a lot in the coming weeks and months. I hope you'll be talking about it too. As we get closer to election time, we want you to understand just how powerful your voice is.

Regards,
Meredith Peace, AEU Victoria President