Less than two weeks after Darwin and Palmerston teachers walked off the job, educators across the entire Territory will go on strike this Thursday to protest the government’s wage freeze offer amid ongoing EBA negotiations.

All schools, however, will remain open and bus services will continue to operate, the government said, to minimise impacts on learning and student supervision during the full-day teachers’ strike.

The strike action is part of the larger “NT Public Sector Day of Action” on September 1, which will include firefighters, nurses, correctional officers and others either walking off the job outright or sending representatives to the day-long rally at Alice Springs Town Council lawns and in Darwin at Parliament House starting from 9am.

A formal notification from the NT Branch of the Australian Education Union (AEU) was sent to the Department of Education about the planned industrial action on all NT schools and worksites this Thursday, as the Commissioner for Public Employment and the AEU remain in negotiations on a new NTPS Non-Contract Principals, Teachers and Assistant Teachers’ Enterprise Agreement.

The Department of Education said all efforts will be made to ensure student safety and wellbeing.

The department said alternative arrangements, including modifying time schedules and combining classes may be required using different teachers and staff.

School principals will continue to communicate arrangements with parents and student guardians through their regular communication channels.

The AEUNT said its members were taking the strike action due to “significant challenges in staffing, workload, and resourcing since the start of 2022”.

“The AEUNT will not support an agreement which will make these issues worse,” said branch secretary Adam Lampe.

The strike comes following the AEU membership rejecting the Commissioner for Public Employment’s final position for a new Enterprise Agreement in March in a member ballot.

The government’s proposed offer included the pay freeze in effect until the end of 2024. Under the offer, the teachers would be given the $4,000 “bonus” after the agreement is approved, and annual lump sum payments of $2,000 in October for four years, all of which are subject to taxes.

That deal has previously been approved by other public service workers, but not teachers, corrections officers, firefighters, nurses and other public workers.

The March employee ballot found that 87.5 per cent of those voting rejected the pay freeze. Since the vote, talks with the new Territory Labor Government ministers have not gone anywhere.

A conference held in May by the AEUNT ended in a unanimous vote to endorse industrial action.

Early this month, AEUNT members agreed by ballot to take a range of industrial actions, plus half-day strikes over the coming months.

Parents should contact schools directly for more information. School phone numbers can be accessed on the Department’s website.