There will be rolling partial strikes this week, and a nationwide one-day strike later in the month.
More than 20,000 unionised secondary and area school teachers are going on strike as their pay scrap with the Government continues.
Rolling partial-strikes affecting students from different year groups on separate days will begin this week, with a full nationwide one-day strike on October 23, PPTA Te Wehengarua president Chris Abercrombie said.
There will also be a ban on extracurricular activity on October 29 and a two-hour nationwide strike between 1.15pm and 3.15pm on November 5.
PPTA Te Wehengarua members in secondary and area schools “strongly endorsed” strike action over a lack of progress with their collective agreement negotiations, Abercrombie said.
The union’s national executive met last night to consider results from the vote, but 10 minutes before the meeting the Government made another offer for settlement of the Secondary Teachers’ Collective Agreement – with a condition it would lapse if strike action was notified, he said.
“As we have not had any bargaining since early September, to present an offer in this way was rushed and poorly thought out on the Government’s part. However, [the] executive did them the courtesy of considering it.
“I’m sorry to say that in several ways it was worse than the previous offer, so we have proceeded with calling the strike action.”
Education Minister Erica Stanford has been contacted for comment.
The strike action would involve about 21,000 secondary and area school teachers, Abercrombie said.
Teachers would refuse to teach year 7s and 9s on Tuesday (October 14), year 8s and 10s on Wednesday (October 15), year 11s and 12s on Thursday (October 16) and year 13s on Friday (October 17).
Negotiations between the Government and PPTA members began in August, with teachers striking soon after over the proposed pay offer of 1% increase every year for three years.
Associate Education Minister David Seymour defended the offer, noting that teachers’ pay had already increased by 14% in the past few years, and saying 60% of teachers earned more than $100,000.
But Abercrombie said the “appalling” offer was the lowest increase in a generation.
A week of rolling strikes affecting separate year groups on different days of the week also took place in September, and Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche urged the union to return to the bargaining table.
The offer was fair and addressed cost-of-living pressures without ignoring the fiscal pressures facing the country, Roche told RNZ.
It would’ve cost taxpayers an additional $361 million over four years and represented a pay increase of 4.7% within 12 months for secondary teachers already at the top of their pay scale.
Abercrombie said today the latest pay increase offered was still below current and projected rates of inflation, and the offer failed to address issues at the heart of members’ claims.
“We need salaries and conditions that will attract people into teaching and keep our skilled and experienced teachers in the profession, particularly as we face once-in-a-generation reforms of our secondary school curriculum and qualifications systems.”
A Teaching and Learning International Survey released last week found keeping up with changing requirements was a significant stressor for teachers.
The Government’s offer ignored teachers’ claims for more pastoral staffing to help the increasing number of students who had health and emotional needs preventing them from engaging fully, he said.
“We want more pastoral care staff in our schools to ensure that those students are able to achieve and thrive.
“We are currently hundreds of teachers short which means that thousands of students are being taught by teachers who are not specialists in the relevant subject, and we have seen students being sent home this year because there are simply not enough teachers to take classes.”
Despite the offer now lapsing, the PPTA had provided it to members, and this week they’d “have the opportunity to provide feedback on it – and how it was made", Abercrombie said.