Labor Tribune || Hamish McPherson is right to argue we need a bigger vision for public education (‘Victorian AEU: power and limits of militant unionism’, Labor Tribune 30 August 2026). But he missed a significant dynamic in the campaign (which also distinguished Socialists in Schools from Fight the Crisis), which was the development of the power that might win a radical public education program.
After AEU members rejected the in-principle agreement that was recommended to us by our leaders, AEU council voted against calling another strike. Our rank-and-file group, Fight the Crisis, organised for sub-branches (the union at the school level) to call industrial action, from the bottom up, school by school, and then through regions.
This bottom-up momentum and initiative to set a date and commit to strike action (not just call on our leaders to call us out on strike) was the reason AEU council finally called the second statewide 24-hour strike on July 23: they did not want to be left behind the rank-and-file momentum that we were building.
The school sub-branches that committed to striking on 4 August, before the officials were willing to call the second strike, are the ones who broke through. When it boils down to it, they stood against the fear campaigning and rejected the message that all union initiatives must come from the top to be valid. Those unionists are the ones who won us the halving of meetings, the Education Support Staff pay increases included in their base salary and the overall pay increases. And the school sub-branches who committed independently to strike action a second time after the 23 July strike was called are the ones who won everyone in the department a $2000 bonus.
The transformation of the education system more fully is going to need that kind of direct, bold democratic industrial action at a workplace level – much more of it, and much bolder – but we have now seen its embryonic redevelopment.
There is a lot stacked against us in growing from the bottom up: anti-worker laws, years of passivity and lost traditions. One thing that should not stand in our way – but did – was the actions of Victorian Socialists.
Socialist in Schools (the Victorian Socialists caucus), mobilised to oppose members from directly democratically calling stop work action. Socialists in Schools members mobilised to stop the Inner City region from directly calling industrial action. Their members opposed – and then scabbed – at local sub-branch stopwork actions.
They bought into and participated in the lies and fear-mongering campaign online, destructively misrepresenting and overplaying the already oppressive powers of the Fair Work Commission.
Despite their alarmism, not one of us who took locally called stopwork action were fined. Union officials, the Labor government, the Department of Education and the principals all organised to terrify us about the risks of using our own power. I am still shocked that Socialists in Schools joined their efforts.
There is a huge amount of work to do to build up our rank-and-file confidence, democratic traditions and power. But we have had a taste of it now, and there is nothing like it: electoral campaigning is truly a pale reflection of it.
No matter how radical a party’s education policy, an electoral strategy that overshadows an industrial strategy is not the path to win it. The way forward to a more expansive transformation of schools and in society is building rank-and-file workers’ confidence and power.
Lucy Honan, Melbourne
Organising Committee member of Fight the Crisis, AEU Victoria state councillor and Solidarity member
9 September 2026
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