Government pay offer does nothing to address 'crisis' in schools, union says
NZEI Te Riu Roa national secretary Paul Goulter says teachers are serious about strike action.
Angry teachers have gone to the ballot box over a contract offer labelled insulting.
About 2000 NZEI Te Riu Roa members from the Waikato area attended a meeting at the Claudelands Arena on Monday to vote on the Government pay offer.
The union says the offer falls well short of the 16 per cent it called for. The government offer will give the majority of teachers – 86 per cent – a pay rise ranging from about 2.2 per cent to 2.6 per cent a year for three years.
NZEI Te Riu Roa members file into the Claudelands Arena to consider the Ministry of Education pay offer.
Teachers in their first three years of teaching make up the remaining 14 per cent and have been offered pay rises averaging 4.3 per cent to 4.7 per cent per year for three years.
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Michelle Ryan, deputy principal at Hamilton's Endeavour School and union negotiator, said the offer undervalues the teaching profession and does nothing to address the crisis in our schools.
Teachers are working 60 and 70 hours per week - far more than the 9am to 3pm classroom time. One teacher who spoke in a closed session of the meeting was up until 3am writing reports, she said.
"I felt insulted, as a professional with 25-plus years experience and knowledge in my field, to be undervalued once again. That, actually, the work that I do is not being remunerated," Ryan said.
NZEI represents about 50,000 NZ principals, teachers and support staff. Members from around the country are deciding whether to accept or reject the Government pay offer.
The results will be released in the first week of July.
Ryan said the Government is relying on the goodwill of teachers and has made no movement on better pay for recruitment and retention, improved workload and resources or getting a special educational needs co-ordinator in every school.
"They were happy to do working parties but we need it now. We can't wait. We've got teachers who are going on stress leave. People aren't joining the profession," she said.
"We didn't get anything close to what we really should have got in terms of fixing the crisis in education in New Zealand."
NZEI national secretary Paul Goulter said what is "particularly galling" about the offer is there is nothing in it that address teacher workload and stress.
"Teachers are pretty angry," Goulter said. "They feel they are really at their wit's end. They are stressed and the workload issues are really big.
"They can't get enough teachers and they are saying we have to do something to change this because they can't cope any longer."
If the result sees the Government offer rejected, it will go back for a second round of negotiations and possible strike action.
"What we are going to take back is a very angry message from our membership that this is just an insult. It doesn't go anywhere to correct the situation for children in New Zealand and they need to be serious because our members are serious about pressing the button on industrial action if that is absolutely necessary."
The Ministry of Education said the government's offer to teachers included a cumulative increase of 14.7 percent to base salaries for graduates with a teaching degree ($47,980 to $55,030) over three years, and a 14.2 percent cumulative increase for graduates with a subject degree and graduate teaching diploma ($49,588 to $56,638) over three years.
The offer also included extra release time for principals of small schools and for teachers and plans to work with teachers to develop a strategy around recruitment and retention and workload management.
- Stuff
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