The Teachers' Strike: What You Need to Know

Giacomo Bianchino

03/12/2021

On December 7 public school teachers across NSW are going on strike. The Militant Monthly spoke to radical educator and poet Dan Hogan about the reasons for the industrial action and the ways people can show solidarity.

1. Which teachers in NSW are striking and why?

“All public school teachers and principals are striking on Tuesday 7 December over the government’s failure to address spiraling shortages, stagnant wages, and unsustainable workloads.

In short, we’re striking for higher wages, reduced workload and job security. The NSW Government’s teacher recruitment has taken a critical downturn. Simply put, the demand for teachers overwhelmingly outstrips the supply. This has entrenched a shortage of teachers and has seen students not receiving the quality education they deserve and that the taxpayer is subsidising. Gaining higher wages would see the abolition of the government’s 2.5% wage-increase cap with each new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement, which would be a huge benefit for all public sector workers whose pay and conditions are presently trapped under the cap.

Currently, classroom teachers are paid for thirty seven hours of work a week but in reality work between 50-80 hours a week, and sometimes more. Every hour outside of the thirty seven is unpaid overtime. Primary school teachers get only two hours of planning time during Award hours each week and high school teachers get five hours planning time a week during Award hours. Reduced workload would mean we can focus on the core business of teaching.

Most teachers are oscillating between exploitive temporary contracts and casual work and do not have job security in way of permanency. Under these conditions, it makes sense that people aren’t flocking to become public school teachers. People don't want to go through the rigour of an education degree to find there are only a measly ten permanent jobs going on the other side. According to the Department’s own internal reporting, NSW is on track to ‘run out of teachers in the next five years’.”

2. How has this struggle developed? What other action has the union taken?

“The struggle has been developing over ten years: since 2011. There is a direct link between the Liberal government’s introduction of austerity measures and the ten years of declining learning outcomes that have followed it. Starting with the imposition in 2011 of a 2.5% wages cap on the wages of all public sector workers. The wages cap has seen teacher wages decline in relation to inflation, cost of living, and other professions. The same Liberal administration also weakened the powers of the Industrial Relations Commission to gain positive outcomes for workers, effectively beefing up powers for hostile public sector employers. The NSW Department of Education has shown how [it] intends to use this weakened IRC by obtaining orders from them declaring this strike unlawful.

Funny how I can't even find a pencil for my students to write with, but the DET can find the time to take legal action against your own teachers who are unionised. This is a slur against public education. If you don't care about teachers, you don't care about kids. We're striking. The DoE [Department of Education] needs to spend less taxpayer money on useless announceables, endless PR, HR and litigation campaigns against its own unionised teachers and more on wages for teachers, reducing workload, replacing exploitive temp contracts with permanency and way more resources for students. There is a direct link between the Department's decade of austerity measures and a decade of declining learning outcomes. PR and litigation will never change that. Working conditions for teachers are the learning conditions for students. Enough is enough. Nothing can stop us from striking.”

3. What are the objectives of the day of striking?

“To demand the government take action on declining teacher wages, worsening shortages and skyrocketing workloads. To signal to the Department of Education and NSW Government that enough is enough. The teacher shortage is real and if the government is serious about fixing its decaying education system it needs to start by increasing teacher wages beyond the wages cap, give teachers more planning time and remove pointless admin tasks from the workload.

As outlined in the roadmap in the Gallop Inquiry, there isn't a shortage of teachers because there is a shortage of supply strategies and schemes. There is a teacher shortage because the profession has been driven into the ground by poor governance that has overseen the long term stagnation of wages, exploitive temp contracts, over-casualisation, and an overblown workload pockmarked by a litany of low-value tasks that have decimated every teacher's work/life balance.

On the day of strike action, rallies will be held across the state.”

4. How can people support the strike before the event and on the day?

“People can show support at https://www.morethanthanks.com.au/ and by vocalising their support in private and on social media. More resources and factsheets can be found at the MoreThanThanks website.”

5. Anything else you’d like to mention about the strike/teacher solidarity?

“All options have been exhausted in negotiations with the NSW Department of Education. We have no other choice but to strike. The Department should be grateful that we’re doing a one day strike in Week 10 of Term 4 and not working to rule instead. It is no secret to staff, students and parents connected to public schools that NSW's education system is built on the unpaid overtime of teachers. The Department of Education's decade-long austerity project has driven teachers out of the profession en masse, acting as a deterrent to ward off new talent and creating a teacher shortage. Not only has the Department's modus operandi of making teachers work more for less wages (or no wages at all) degraded the working conditions of teachers, it has also overseen a decline in positive education outcomes for students. The Department is yet to acknowledge the direct link between the working conditions of teachers and learning outcomes for students. And this is despite the Department spending millions of taxpayer dollars on consultancy firms like Deloitte and PriceWaterhouseCoopers to solve its recruitment poverty.

Solidarity forever! At the end of the day, we are striking because if the government doesn’t care about teachers, it sure as hell doesn’t care about kids.”

Source and more documentation from DoE’s internal reporting: https://www.nswtf.org.au/files/exec_priority_boost_supply_of_high_quality_teachers.pdf