Colac teachers marched on State Parliament as part of statewide strike action.
COLAC teachers marched on State Parliament as part of a state-wide strike yesterday.
Colac Secondary College Australian Education Union sub-branch president Martin Rieniets said 39 teachers walked off the job from CSC yesterday.
Mr Rieniets said six Colac teachers joined other teachers from south-west Victoria in travelling to Melbourne for the stop-work meeting.
“The bus is full from Warrnambool through to Colac,” he said.
“There’s a fair representation from the south-west.”
Teachers met at Hisense Arena and then marched to the steps of State Parliament.
“It was fantastic I think, they reckon there was 11,000 to 11,500 people there,” Mr Rieniets said.
“Hisense was chockas, there were people outside,” he said.
Mr Rieniets said the march was a clear message that “the teaching fraternity are not happy”.
“The Colac contingent was right up there on the steps of parliament, ended up right up the front,” he said.
“We were probably waiting half an hour at least for the tail end of the march to get there, I think it certainly made a statement.”
The AEU wants a 10-per-cent pay rise, with the State Government only offering 2.5 per cent.
Mr Rieniets said the 2.5 per cent proposal was less than inflation.
“The greater fact of it all is the massive, massive cuts across all sectors of education,” he said.
“The rally was a huge success, it is a small proportion of the people that are out across the state, but it still had huge impact because it had huge numbers.”
Tags: Education, State Government
