Teachers are leading strikes over a public service wage freeze in the Northern Territory, arguing wages must remain above those offered interstate to keep — or get — its classrooms staffed.
Full-day strikes took place in Darwin and Alice Springs as well as regional and remote communities on Thursday, after the Australian Education Union NT branch rejected a new deal offered by the government late on Tuesday.
Wages for all public servants in the NT are frozen for four years at 2021 levels under budget repair policies implemented by the government.
Prison guards in Darwin and Alice Springs also stopped work on Thursday, while members of the nurses and firefighter unions — which are not yet on strike — joined marches in the bigger centres.
The education union is the latest to reject a deal involving one-off pay increases and bonuses in lieu of wages growth.
Katherine teacher Andre Retot, whose school has pushed on despite massive teacher shortages and a high turn-over of staff, said the offer falls short of what is needed.
"We need a proper pay rise," he said.
"We need a pay rise that recognises that teaching in the Northern Territory is one of the hardest places to teach in Australia, for various reasons.
"And [a pay rise] that recognises that 90 per cent of our teachers do come from outside the territory, so we do need to attract them here."
His colleague, Daisy Fotopoulos, said the pay freeze was another disincentive to move to the remote region, on top of increasing cost of living pressures and Katherine's dire housing shortage.
She said her students were unfairly copping the flow-on effects.
"When I arrived last year I was the sixth English teacher in my year 7 class ... and that was at the start of Term 2," she said.
"[Staff turnover] really impacts on the student-teacher relationship in terms of trust."
'Solid, sensible' offers on the table, government says
The offer sent to the education union on Tuesday would see teacher salaries jump by between 1.8 and 4.8 per cent.
The starting salary would rise to $80, 715, which Education Minister Eva Lawler said would again make teacher wages in the NT the highest in Australia — union members said that temporary position would be overtaken by growth in other states.
"It is a good, solid sensible offer by the Northern Territory government," Ms Lawler told ABC Radio Darwin.
"I hope the education union has a good look at it and I hope the teachers get the information and have a good look at that as well."
In a letter sent to members the union said the offer "does not break the wage freeze in any meaningful way" and does not take the NT's cost-of-living increases into account.
Union leaders said it was also unclear if the pay increases would be funded through additional money or from existing school budgets.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Public Employment Minister Paul Kirby said the funding source was yet to be determined.
Prisoners in lockdown as corrections officers strike
The 12-hour strike held by prison officers on Thursday was the group's second round of industrial action.
A government spokesperson said people being held in the Darwin and Alice Springs prisons would remain in lockdown while the strike took place, while non-urgent court appearances were cancelled for the day.
Staff at the NT's government-owned electricity corporations will vote on whether to take industrial action next Monday.
Ms Lawler, who also holds the treasury portfolio, said those groups could potentially be offered a pay rise deal like that made to the education sector this week.
But she said the government would be remaining "prudent" about its budget management.
"Our employees are our biggest cost to government," she said.
"We have 21 or 22,000 public servants so of course we have to be careful around those pay offers."
Public service wages in the NT were growing by two per cent a year before the wage freeze policy was introduced.
It came after a major review of the NT's budget management, which recommended that wages growth be capped at $1000 a year.
