NSW teachers’ union tells staff to ‘ready’ themselves ahead of strike action on May 4

Public school teachers have declared they will officially strike next Wednesday, further disrupting student learning. Poll: Should teachers take strike action?

The teachers union has been branded selfish by fed-up parents for using the first day of the school term to threaten strike action which is expected to send students’ learning into further chaos after years of Covid disruptions.

The powerful NSW Teachers Federation voted to shut down schools on Wednesday, May 4 while also banning the rollout of any new policies and forbidding government MPs from even setting foot on school grounds in its battle to secure a pay rise for teachers.

Union president Angelo Gavrielatos said the government had not come to the negotiating table and refused to budge from a pay rise offer of 2.05 per cent.

“We provided the Perrottet government with an opportunity to sit down with us and genuinely negotiate and reach a mutual agreement in order to address the crippling teacher shortage and its underlying causes — uncompetitive pay and crippling workload,” he said.

The union is demanding teachers get up to 7.5 per cent pay rise while also securing an extra two hours time to do planning every week.

For a graduate teacher on $73,737, a 5 per cent increase would equate to an extra $70 a week before tax.

But any sympathy for teachers was quickly evaporating on Tuesday as parents faced the news that their children would miss out on another day of schooling due to an avoidable strike after years of on-again, off-again lessons and patchy learning from home.

Cammeray Public School students Josie, 7, and Percy Lamont, 5, in Camera are ready to learn. Picture: Justin Lloyd

Stacey Lamont said she wanted her children Josie, 7, and Percy, 5, to go to school as normal at Cammeray Public next week.

“We just had parent teacher interviews in the last week ­before school holidays … the teacher said that pretty much the entire (Year 2) grade was still only at a Year 1 level and she said she’s never seen an ­entire year so disadvantaged,” she said.

“We’ve had two years of disruptions. It’s disappointing and it’s frustrating because you just want the best for your kids.”

Central Coast dad Craig Kettle branded the teachers ­arrogant and self-interested.

“Unions are using this during an election, they have no interest in our children’s education … This comes down to unions trying to get capital from our children’s needs,” he said.

Premier Dominic Perrottet. Picture: Dylan Coker

The Northern Sydney Regional Council of P & C Associations president David Hope said he supported giving top performing teachers more cash but questioned giving underperformers a rise just for the sake of it.

“We would support a scale which encouraged better performing teachers and rewarded them,” he said.

Education Minister Sarah Mitchell. Picture: Gaye Gerard

Education Minister Sarah Mitchell urged the union to engage with the Industrial ­Relations Commission’s process rather than striking.

She implored the union not to disrupt students’ education further, saying it was a “bit frustrating” the union was threatening action just days after the announcement to scrap mandates.

“I really hope that the union leaders think very seriously about the disruption that’s already been in place for our students due to Covid,” she said.

“I will just really implore the union, think about what’s important for our students, work with us, the government … and also be part of the IRC (Industrial Relations Commission) process that is underway …

“These are the appropriate places to deal with any industrial issues and it shouldn’t be about disrupting students and their education.”

Percy, 5, and Josie Lamont, 7, and with mum Stacey Lamont, who is keen for them to have consistent schooling. Picture: Justin Lloyd

On Tueday, Ms Mitchell also ruled out dumping vaccine mandates before May 13 when the requirements are set to expire, saying work was still being done on health and safety aspects of the return of unvaccinated teachers.

“(The) sector has to look at how do we make sure we’ve got the appropriate work health and safety in place when it comes to vaccine requirements at the moment,” she said.

“One of the issues that we’re working through for instance, is our teachers who work with students who have additional needs or are highly vulnerable, particularly those in support classes.”

She said there had been “a lot of misinformation floating around” about the number of teachers not working due to the mandate, saying less than a thousand had been fired due to it.

She said most staffing shortfalls last year had been caused by staff catching Covid.

“The reality is a lot of the issues we had last term, frankly, were due to people who they themselves contracted Covid. We had almost 15,000 members of staff let us know that they had Covid last term,” she said.

Teachers went on strike in December last year for the first time in a decade protesting workload and low salaries.

They are demanding an increase in pay of between 5 and 7.5 per cent depending on the experience level of the teacher.