HUNTER public and Catholic school teachers will combine forces for a joint strike on Thursday June 30, calling for better pay and conditions.
NSW Teachers Federation regional organiser Jack Galvin Waight and Independent Education Union of Australia NSW/ACT branch Newcastle organiser Therese Fitzgibbon said the unions' joint campaign spoke to the size of the crisis facing the profession.
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"Today is a historic day, for the first time in our history we stand as one, one voice. We're a profession in crisis and subsequently we need to take this action," Mr Galvin Waight said.
"The Premier is failing our students, he's failing our profession, if we don't act now, the teacher crisis and the teacher shortages will continue to affect our students."
The Hunter's independent schools will be the only schools fully operational next Thursday, when public and Catholic school teachers will rally at Civic Park and march to the state government offices on Bull Street.
"We have to come together because it's affecting the education of students regardless of whether you're learning in a state school or a Catholic school, it's across the board," Ms Fitzgibbon said.
"We need to address it and the best way to get that message across is to come together as one strong united voice and to take action."
Mr Galvin Waight said the government's own documents showed there would be a 15 per cent teacher shortfall across both sectors and that non-competitive salaries and unsustainable workloads were causing the shortage, which he said was leading some schools to split or combine classes and teach students in the library or quadrangle.
Ms Fitzgibbon said teachers were angry, exhausted and couldn't sustain their current workloads.
"We know teachers are working sometimes well into the early morning just to get on top of workload. They're doing 20 hours to 25 hours of face-to-face each week and in addition to that they're having to front up to do an extra hour or hour and a half for every hour of face-to-face teaching, it's not sustainable," she said.
"If we don't make salaries competitive, if we don't do something to alleviate workplace pressures, there's not going to be any teachers in front of the class.
"Teachers are leaving en-masse and critical staff shortages are adversely impacting student learning every day."
They said the strikes were not intended to cause headaches for families.
"The state government has caused this disruption, this is in the Premier's hands," Mr Galvin Waight said.
"Parents should be angry and they should take that anger out at the premier."
The unions said last week they were giving Premier Dominic Perrottet seven days to address pay and conditions in the budget.
The government's two-year wages policy will give public sector workers a three per cent increase per annum in 2022-23 and 2023-24, with a possible further 0.5 per cent next year for those who contribute to 'productivity enhancing reforms'.
Teachers want annual increases of between five and 7.5 per cent.
Each union has held their own strike in recent months.
