High school students are supporting their striking teachers, launching a petition calling for improved teacher pay, in a bid to end their days spent at home due to strike action.
"Other people I've talked to are getting to the point where they're looking at missing internals and that altogether just cause they don't have enough time with their teachers," petition creator and Hillcrest High School head student Nico Bhula says.
Over 1100 people have signed the petition, with students and family members sharing comments of concern about their learning being disrupted, for some off the back of enduring three years of Covid disruption, and calling for improved pay and working conditions for staff.
"Living in the environment of a school, week in, week out you do really understand they need to be compensated better," Bhula says.
Parent Jono Skipwith has also launched a petition that's gathered over 2000 signatures calling for strike action to stop.
"We aren't at the negotiation table, we can't decide what they get paid or what their conditions are yet we're the ones that are being affected and I would say punished," petition creator Jono Skipwith says.
PPTA Auckland regional chairperson and high school teacher Paul Stevens said the strike action for improved pay and conditions is an attempt to address teacher shortages.
"The teachers that I talk to, they don't want to be doing this, they find it really, really difficult to take this action but at the same time they know they if we aren't able to staff our schools, things are just going to get even harder," he said.
A PPTA staffing survey from March this year revealed one in seven advertised teaching positions had no applicants from New Zealand or overseas.
A union report on the survey says the majority of findings are the "worst we have on record" since the survey was launched in 1996.
Negotiations between the Ministry of Education and PPTA have continued for over a year.
The Employment Relations Authority has recommended an arbitration process be explored by the parties and industrial action be urgently suspended while that process is progressed.
Arbitration is where an independent panel decides what should happen.
In this case the judgment wouldn't be binding, but would be a strong recommendation to the parties that would also be made public, a spokesperson for the Education Ministry stated.
The PPTA is currently considering the ERA's recommendations.
In a statement, the Education Ministry said if agreed to, once started arbitration could take four to six weeks.
"It's clear the parties are still fairly far apart, we don't know exactly where they are in negotiations but clearly there needs to be some intervention now," Victoria University of Wellington employment relations academic Dr Stephen Blumenfeld says.
Dr Blumenfeld says both parties will be keeping an eye on public sentiment.
"Having public support is very important, especially with school teachers but other areas of the public sector as well."
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