Lessons from the teachers’ strike
If you have any doubt that the first strike by primary and intermediate teachers in 24 years turned into a much bigger event than almost anyone expected, consider that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was able to alter her schedule at the last minute.
As late as yesterday morning, Ardern said she had another engagement but would send senior ministers to meet the demonstration outside Parliament. But that suddenly changed and she became available to speak to the crowd.
Ardern, Education Minister Chris Hipkins and six other Labour, NZ First and Green MPS lined up as if for a class photo. They looked out at a sea of teachers and children wielding signs free of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Similar crowds marched in other
New Zealand cities.
Some will see her change of heart as cynical, rather than an intuitive recognition of the scale of the event and the overwhelming public support for teachers. It was also clear her comments expressing frustration that teachers were much quicker to strike than nurses were poorly received and perhaps there was an urgent need for damage control.
Teachers would have been known by noon yesterday of the enormous support for their cause. The profession is notoriously underpaid and noone repeats old jokes about early knock-offs and long summer holidays any more. The growing workload and increasing challenges teachers face are widely understood and few seemed to begrudge an extra, mid-week school holiday.
There is a tendency to focus on money when covering employment disputes. But like nursing, teaching has become understaffed and underresourced and it is difficult to attract and retain teachers. The NZEI view is that a pay rise of 16 per cent over two years will keep teachers in schools and bring in new ones.
The Government’s counter-offer would have given nearly 90 per cent of teachers a pay rise of between 2.2 and 2.6 per cent a year for three years. The nurses secured much larger increases.
Aside from the money, there is the need to add resourcing to a sector that has been stretched. The NZEI slogan ‘‘It’s time’’ has a double meaning. Not only are teachers due a decent pay rise after nine years of low expectations, the slogan says, but there is finally a sympathetic Government in place. Ardern said as much when she stated that, just like teachers, she is motivated by the welfare of children.
It could therefore be viewed as opportunistic that nurses and teachers opted to strike in this political climate rather than earlier. That will have added to the Government’s frustrations.
But putting the pay issue aside, it is hard to argue with the general thrust of the campaign. The NZEI wants significant increases in staffing, especially in areas of special learning. An expectation that every school should have a special needs education co-ordinator does not seem unreasonable. Teachers also need their burden of assessment reduced.
Nor could either Labour or National argue with the NZEI aim of reducing class sizes in years
4 to 8 from 29 to 25. Smaller classes have been airily promised by both in their efforts to win over parents. Be careful what you promise.
‘‘The NZEI slogan ‘It’s time’ has a double meaning. Not only are teachers due a decent pay rise after nine years of low expectations, the slogan says, but there is finally a sympathetic Government in place.’’