HUNTER teachers will attend a rally at Newcastle City Hall on May 4, as part of a NSW Teachers Federation strike calling on the government to to improve pay and workloads.
The federation's state executive made the unanimous decision to hold industrial action.
The federation also put a ban on implementing new government policies and initiatives and said members would walk out if government MPs visited schools.
Federation regional organiser Jack Galvin Waight said Hunter teachers were "fed up with a government that has shown it doesn't care about students and the profession".
"We suspended our industrial campaign in term one and tried to negotiate but they refused to listen," Mr Galvin Waight said.
"Teachers have been left with no alternative but to act. Shortages are crippling our schools in the Hunter. Kids are missing out, teachers pushed to breaking point.
"Kids can't put their education on hold and hope someone shows up in three years.
"They need urgent action. COVID isn't the cause of the crisis.
"It is just making a bad situation worse."
The federation wants a pay rise of between five and 7.5 per cent per year, plus two extra hours of planning time per week.
The government's public sector wages policy caps pay rises at 2.5 per cent per year.
The government has this year paid teachers an increase of 2.5 per cent - comprised of a 2.04 per cent salary increase and 0.5 per cent increase to the Superannuation Guarantee Contribution - via an award variation. T
he award is scheduled to be arbitrated in the Industrial Relations Commission in early May.
A Department of Education spokesperson said it asked the federation to call off the strike and that no student needed another day out of the classroom.
Minister for Education Sarah Mitchell said the union and its "group of 200 executives have again chosen themselves over the profession and students".
"The union do not need to interrupt student learning to make an industrial argument," she said. "We already have an Industrial Relations Commissions process underway, and this is the appropriate place to deal with these issues. It is telling that instead of using evidence to argue their position in the IRC they use students, parents and teachers as blackmail.
"The tactics and threatening approach from this union ... are incredibly disappointing after two years of home learning when respect for the profession has been at an all-time high."
A new poll of 10,000 teachers found 73 per cent in regional and rural areas found their workload unmanageable.
Mr Galvin Waight said the government had known about the worsening teacher shortage for seven years, that there was a 30 per cent decline in people studying teaching and about the ageing workforce "and they did nothing".
