Teachers begin urgent strike talks
Primary school teachers may need to vote again ahead of a week of rolling strike action, as urgent talks between the union and Ministry of Education begin.
The Government and the union representing primary school teachers and principals have seven days to hammer out an agreement.
And New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa president Lynda Stuart isn’t ruling out the possibility of another vote this week if the ministry improves its offer.
Both parties have asked Employment Relations Authority chief James Crichton to lead facilitation talks in Wellington in an attempt to resolve the longrunning dispute before more than 460,000 students are forced from their classrooms for a second time in three months. The joint facilitation application was accepted because bargaining had been protracted, further strike action was planned and that action would have a substantial effect on the public interest.
Stuart acknowledged stepping into the negotiating room again had thrown up several unknowns. Among them was how long the talks would last, whether another teachers’ vote will take place this week, and whether a second round of industrial action could be prevented.
‘‘Any decisions that we make around the collective agreement need to go to the vote of the members. We involve the members through the whole process,’’ Stuart said.
More than a day would be needed to carry out a vote.
‘‘We go into this process in good faith, we go in hoping we will get a resolution.’’
Stuart praised the Government’s announcement on Sunday of 600 new learning support coordinators to assist students with complex needs from 2020.
Stuart hoped the authority’s intervention would help resolve the crisis but encouraged parents to plan for the strikes.
She refuted suggestions that parents’ support could wane if teachers and principals continued to strike.
If the bargaining is unsuccessful, strike action will start in the wider Auckland region on Monday, November 12.
Under revised offers tabled in September, entry-level teachers’ starting salary would lift from
$47,980 to an eventual starting point of $53,429 in 2020. Teachers at the top end of the scale would have staggered salary rises from
$75,949 to $82,992 in 2020. Primary principals where rolls were under 100 students were offered a 3 per cent base salary increase each year for three years from the date of settlement.
Principals of schools with more than 100 students would have seen base salary increases of 4.5 per cent in the first year after settlement, followed by 4.5 per cent and 4.4 per cent increases for the following two years respectively. The union has previously criticised what it believed was the ministry’s failure to reduce heavy workloads and class sizes in its offers.