Secondary teachers in the South Island have been out in force this morning, protesting against their pay offers from the Ministry of Education.
It comes as the ministry urged for strike action to halt today after the latest pay offer was made late yesterday.
The ministry says the new offer would boost salaries for all teachers by 11% to 14% over three years but the PPTA says it’s still not enough to address the rising cost of living.
The rolling strikes are planned through to Thursday, with secondary teachers in the lower North Island set to stop work from tomorrow and upper North Island, the following day.
A spokesperson from the PPTA told 1News strike action in the north over the next two days won’t be postponed – but if bad weather compromises activities such as rallies and roadside pickets, they will be cancelled.
Principal expresses concern for students
Principal of Waimea College in Nelson’s Richmond, Scott Haines, told 1News a handful of students were being supervised today.
He said all of the support staff such as caretakers, cleaners and learning assistants were on site along with teachers who are non-union members.
“We are supervising about five students whose parents could not make alternative arrangements.
“We have just come out of a significant period of disruption due to Covid and we really need stability. We are quite keen to have these negotiations resolved as soon as possible.”
It comes as the Ministry of Education put forward a new offer to the PPTA. (Source: 1News)
He said he’s not even sure if the latest offer from the ministry has been put to secondary teachers yet.
“Very clearly, things are tough in our sector in terms of being able to recruit and retain good staff. We know the current settings, the pay-scale, the class sizes are not ideal.
“It was interesting to see the Ministry of Education’s offer last night – it’s encouraging to see some offers beyond just remuneration, like the cultural leadership, and increasing pastoral care.”
Ministry of Education 'disappointed' strikes not paused
Mark Williamson, general manager, Employment Relations at the Ministry of Education said in a statement said it’s disappointing strike action was not paused.
“Our offer was made on 3 May and released publicly yesterday. As the offer was made in collective bargaining we are limited by our good faith obligations in how we can discuss what we have offered and why. However, we are disappointed that PPTA has not paused its action which is disrupting student learning given the comprehensive offer that we have made to settle pay and conditions for secondary teachers.
"Our offer addresses the key issues brought to the negotiations by the PPTA and we trust that PPTA’s members will take the time to consider how our increased investment, across the more than 15 elements of the offer, directly addresses their concerns.
"As we have outlined in our media release, we have increased our offer on the base salary for all teachers. The new maximum base salary would increase to $100,000 (11.11%) by December 2024, as opposed to an increase to $96,000 (6.67%) as a top base rate in our October offer.
"Similar increases apply across the teachers’ pay scale, with base rates increasing by 11% to 14% by December 2024. This means, with progression, teachers who are not yet at the top of the scale will receive actual increases of up to 31% during the three years of the agreement."
Williamson said the offer provides an immediate average salary increase of 4.7% across all steps backdated to 1 December 2022. If accepted, the offer would put salary increases for secondary teachers ahead of the national average salary increase of 4.3% in the year to March 2023 (as measured by the Labour Cost Index).
"In order to provide teachers with more time to support students with pastoral care needs we have increased the number of pastoral care time allowances offered from 1,133 in October to 1,340 in our new offer.
"We have recognised the need to grow support for beginning teachers. Our offer on the first step on the scale has increased to $58,505 (13.92%) from December 2024, as opposed to $57,358 (11.68%) in our October offer. In our new offer we have also agreed to meet the $512 certification costs of beginning teachers progressing to full registration over the term of the agreement, which was not offered in October.
"We have maintained our offers for $5,000 cultural leadership allowances, to significantly increase the Māori Immersion Teaching Allowance, and to introduce a Pacific Bilingual Immersion Allowance.
"In our new offer we have set aside $5 million in targeted PLD for secondary teachers (which was not offered in October), beyond the wide ranging centrally funded PLD already accessible by secondary school teachers, while also maintaining our offer on many more conditions which are more technical in nature.
“Our proposed term of the offer is three years, rather than the two years offered in October,” Williamson said.
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