Hawke's Bay teachers vote over latest pay offer or to take industrial action

NZEI national president, Lynda Stuart attended a paid union meeting in Napier yesterday. Photo/Paul Taylor

More than 300 primary teachers gathered in Napier to vote on whether to accept the Ministry of Education's pay offers or reject them and take industrial action.

Members of the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa have been attending paid union meetings of primary, intermediate and kura teachers and principals across the country since June 18, with the final lot set for today.

If they vote to reject the ministry's offers, teachers and principals will vote on whether to hold nationwide half-day work stoppages from 1.30pm to 4.30pm on August 15. This would effectively result in half-day school closures. During the stoppages, members would attend union meetings to consider any further developments or offers.

The results of the voting is expected to be made early next week.

The Ministry of Education offered about 86 per cent of the teachers a pay rise of between 2.2 and 2.6 per cent a year for three years.

But the offer was far from the 16 per cent over two years members had identified.

""It is the pay jolt that we think is needed to attract people to the profession," NZEI president Lynda Stuart said.

MOE offered pay rises averaging 4.3 to 4.7 per cent per year for three years to teachers in their first three years of working.

According to 2016 figures, about 14 per cent of all teachers have been teaching for less than four years.

First-year teachers would go from the current $49,588 to $56,638, 24 months after the agreement was signed.

Stuart said it is an important conversation to be had.

"The sense that I am getting is that people are pretty angry and quite upset around the offer from the Ministry and feel that it doesn't really address the issues that have been identified.

"We are wanting to attract people into the profession and then keep them in the profession and at the moment we know that people are not choosing to be teachers or principals for that matter."

She said they've had a "serious decline over pay and working conditions over the past nine years". "Our education system is in crisis when we cannot get teachers to fill our vacancies."

"It is an issue that is personal to teachers and the whole issue of whether or not to take industrial action is not something any teacher takes lightly," Greenmeadows School teacher Catherine Webster said.

One teacher, who did not wish to be named, said her and her husband were both in the profession and their salary did not reflect the work they do. "It's absurd".

Meaanee School teacher, Kelly McKay said it is "not acceptable".

"We're not being valued as teachers," she said. "Our salaries are not rising with the cost of inflation and everything else."

McKay expressed concern that the focus on improving pay for beginning teachers will not fix the growing teacher shortage.