South-west teachers protesting outside Denis Napthine's office last month.
TEACHERS throughout south-west Victoria will join stopwork protests later this month as part of their battle with the state government for pay rises.
They will rally outside the offices of local MPs to press home their case which has been dragging on for months.
Hundreds of teachers from 110 schools in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs walked off the job yesterday for a protest meeting outside Premier Ted Baillieu’s electorate office.
Further action will involve Shepparton, Horsham and Sunshine later in the week.
The Australian Education Union told The Standard yesterday that south-west teachers found it difficult to attend metropolitan rallies and would be given opportunity to participate closer to home on October 30.
Stopwork rallies will be held on October 30 outside the Colac office of Polwarth MP Terry Mulder, the Warrnambool office of South West Coast MP Denis Napthine and the Hamilton office of Lowan MP Hugh Delahunty.
The union previously rejected a 2.5 per cent pay rise and is demanding a 10 per cent increase in line with Mr Baillieu’s pledge to make Victorian teachers the highest paid in the country.
Union leader Mary Bluett said talks had resumed, but there was still a long way to go.
“We hope the rolling stoppages will again focus government attention on the need to facilitate those negotiations and resolve the matters that are still outstanding,” she said.
