TEACHERS and support staff at 50 Catholic schools across the Hunter will stop work for one hour today, arguing they've been pushed to their breaking point by uncompetitive salaries and unmanageable workloads.
The strike will take place across NSW and the ACT, including at Newcastle schools like Saint Francis Xavier's College (SFX) at Hamilton.
Independent Education Union (IEU) secretary Mark Northam said schools are sending a clear message to Catholic employers that serious work needs to be done to fix pay issues and lighten the administrative burden on teachers.
"I think the level of frustration is quite high, and our members, teachers and support staff remain mystified as to why the Catholic employers can't engage productively with the union," he said.
"There's just a great sense of frustration, bordering on disbelief, that Catholic employers can't come to the table with meaningful workload reductions and pay people properly to make them stay in the profession rather than leaving the profession."
Negotiations on a new pay deal began in early February and the IEU argues its no closer to resolving pay issues nine months later.
According to the IEU, the NSW Industrial Relations Commission handed down a decision to grant teachers in the state's public system pay rises of 2.29 per cent in 2022 and 2.53 per cent in 2023.
While Catholic employers aren't legally bound by the ruling, the IEU argues they've been "dragging the chain" waiting for it, "having long imposed the NSW Government's wages policy on Catholic teachers".
Most Catholic schools across Newcastle and Maitland will stop work between 10 and 11am.
The Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle has been contacted for comment.
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