Negotiations drag on for four pay deals

Education reporter Gianina Schwanecke revisits what’s been happening in negotiations between education unions and the Education Ministry and what it might mean for further strike action.

The Ministry of Education may have made progress completing near year-long negotiations with various education unions, but four collective agreements have yet to been finalised.

Primary teachers are the latest to settle, but their counterparts in secondary, along with area teachers and principals, and primary principals have yet to come to an agreement with the ministry.

Further strike action could still be on the cards, with the PPTA (Post Primary Teacher’s Association) Te Wehengarua to announce the results of its latest vote later this week.

Secondary

Secondary school teachers returned to rostering different year levels home this week – with year 9 students not attending school today – as part of ongoing strike action.

The action had been on pause until the PPTA executive advised its members to reject the latest Government offer, which it described as not ‘‘good enough’’.

PPTA members are currently voting on both the latest offer and what further action they would take if members reject the offer.

Acting president Chris Abercrombie earlier said ‘‘this is not something we take lightly. We don’t want to be doing this. We want to be in classrooms teaching. We want to settle’’.

The latest offer included a lump sum payment of $4500 for union members and three pay rises by December 2024, totalling between 11% and 15.5%.

The general manager for employment relations at the Ministry of Education, Mark Williamson, earlier said the ministry is ‘‘clearly disappointed’’ the PPTA has resumed strike action while its members consider the offer.

If the offer is not accepted, the parties will return to facilitation with the Employment Relations Authority.

Voting closes this evening with the national executive to meet to consider the results and decide the next steps.

Secondary principals, represented by the Secondary Principals’ Associations of New Zealand and Secondary Principals’ Council unions, settled with the ministry in November and February respectively.

New Zealand Educational Institute Te Riu Roa

Mark Potter, the president of the primary teacher’s union, NZEI Te Riu Roa, said the union will continue to push forward on the issues of teacher pay, pay parity for leadership and specialist roles, and improvement in staffing ratios.