Secondary Teachers Union is burning all credibility with parents
Secondary teachers’ union considering independent determination of pay dispute
The Employment Relations Authority has “strongly recommended” an immediate halt to secondary teachers’ industrial action, after a lack of movement in bargaining between the teachers’ union and Education Ministry.
Negotiators from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the Ministry of Education met on Friday to continue facilitated bargaining on the Secondary Teachers’ Collective Agreement.
The ERA are not right wing stooges crushing the throat of the working man, they are notoriously fair and if they are recommending an immediate halt to rolling strikes by Teachers and are pushing for an independent determination, then it’s clear that the problem behind the scenes is the PPTA whose current negotiation tactics and strategies are causing the lack of solution while burning capital with suffering parents who are being forced to stop working to look after their kids the teachers are striking against.
Far be it from me to suggest that the PPTA are as good at strategy as your average Green Party staffer, but by whipping Teachers into a frenzy of strikes, they’ve injected a highly charged environment that they need to produce a major win for.
Problem is they don’t seem to have the imagination to produce something more than slightly better conditions for long term teachers and are digging in their heels because they haven’t actually got a plan here other than whip up a frenzy of strikes.
These strikes are burning the social capital Teachers have always had with parents.
Talking to many parents, there is a growing sense of frustration and resentment towards teachers that I’ve never heard in NZ before.
There is a real sense that our kids are not getting ahead educationally and that school has morphed into a baby sitting for our kids feelings.
Gen Xers and Boomers grew up in an educational philosophy that stated ‘Be the best you can be’. The idea was you were in a constant competition with yourself to perform with personal excellence in the field you did best in.
It unfortunately also used Bell Curve graph ruthlessness that ensured 50% failed regardless of whether they actually passed. That created generations of lost potential. Instead of reform the Belle Curve mentality, we went completely the other way with Tomorrow’s Schools in dumping all the responsibility onto local communities without any of the resourcing.
That manifested a completely different philosophy.
Millennials and under were brought up in an educational philosophy of ‘everyone is special’.
You can quickly see the problem.
Schools seem to have been given carte blanche to define educational achievement as they like with the most important factor being the feelings of the child.
It seems to have produced a brittle generation who require constant nurturing and cuddles rather than stoic self reliance and independence of critical thinking agency.
On top of this are Teacher’s constantly striking and closing down in the middle of the day when the rain starts.
Teacher’s are making parents lives far more difficult than they currently are and it seems like they are fighting over very little of significance.
Let’s be completely honest – currently all we are being offered in education from any of the Political Parties are band-aids to haemorrhaging problems within education.
Teachers deserve 4 day weeks + more pay + extra resources + a teacher’s aid in each class + provide bonded scholarships with accomodation for new teachers!
Teachers work miracles with our kids, and as much as I roll my eyes at what the kids are getting taught these days, I’m still in awe of what NZ Teachers can achieve with the little they have.
There are few silver bullets in social policy, education is one of them.
We need to nurture an education environment that respects Teachers and resources them properly because our Schools are central hubs within our community that can and must be utilised and supported more.
Schools need to be used after hours for adult education classes that we should be funding.
Schools should be used to create gardens and farms for local food security and to use in free breakfasts and lunches.
We need to use our schools as entry points for counsellors and social services for the wider community.
We need to fully fully fully fund our public education rather than inject false competition models or new bureaucratic structures and we need to ensure a central curriculum of math, science, physical education and critical thinking are providing the tools for our kids to learn.
That takes far more money and it takes a Government with the courage to tax the fucking rich more so that excellent public education continues to be the egalitarian pillar of New Zealand!
Striking for band aids that don’t go anywhere towards the required solutions seems so limited and shallow.
Teacher’s will keep parents on their side when Teachers fight for transformative change, not just extending perks for long serving members.
I don’t wish to be critical of the Teacher Union Negotiators, I am certain that they are as talented and as magnificent as the Green Party Strategists, but could I humbly suggest the following?
You have the most political muscle you will ever have, over play your hand and allow National to benefit and you will rue the day you screwed this up.
If you think negotiating while a friendly Labour Party are in power is difficult, imagine negotiating with National while David Seymour starts the chainsaw.
Kick the extra wage increases into a 2 year review, but gain something of magnitude that gives Teachers a win and real relief.
Negotiate 5 extra days annual leave for Teachers, the primary school teachers gained an extra hour each week, secondary Teachers should push for extra free days!
If we can’t pay them more, provide better conditions.
Take the deal.
Kick the extra upgrades into a 2 year review.
Gain 5 extra days of annual paid leave.
Do it, do it now before you start burning Parental support and hand National the election.
The ERA ruling is pointing to who the problem is here and it doesn’t look like the Ministry.
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A better question would be: Why aren’t all the other unions out on strike as well — and receiving millions of applications from members whose union cards were stripped, when universal membership and right-of-entry was abolished? A multi-decade collapse in living standards and workers’ rights is reason enough surely, let alone the current crash in wages.
The simplest method to save the curriculum is to reset the material to the version used when aptitude scores were peaking in the mid-1960s (with the addition of the B.B.C. Computer Literacy programme). Overall, policy should be reset to that recommended by the Committee of Ten (i.e. uniform college preparation, not the later Cardinal Principles concept, in which the great “army of incapables” would be sent to lobotomised classes “for the dullards”).
You are 100% correct. In terms of NZEI, the Primary school union rejected the first offer from the government, which was reasonable, officially its members did but the word I have was no matter what it was always going to be rejected. So it seemed suspiciously preordained. That, in a year of delays because of inclement weather and after nearly 3 years of covid closures, pissed patents off.
They then accepted a third or possibly the fourth offer, a reheated first offer that offered a one off payment then decimated by tax. And no extra teacher release time.
Personally I blame increasingly out of touch insular Wellington based unions.
EXCELLENT ARTICLE MARTIN HOPEFULLY THE TEACHERS WILL TAKE NOTE
Burnt. Past tense.
I think you are a bit hard on the bell curve, you only need to mix with a wide mix of people to see that we have different abilities, the fault lies in the common thought that only those with academic credentials are capable of having good ideas. Education should develop what abilities students have along with providing values that enable them to contribute to society in whatever way best suits their talent.
So you would take a pay cut, Martyn?
Perhaps go talk to the teachers rather than sit on your throne and opine.
Yyou say you respect teachers, but there is more going on than your concerns of political convenience.
The primary teachers are livid because our union has embarrassed the secondary and given in to the govt reshuffling while the bureaucrats laugh at us behind their backs.
The real problem is that there is massive can-kicking going on at the same time as busy work that will never go anywhere is being invented by the overpaid wonks in the ministry, who are just getting their policy from overseas consultants and thinktanks – who are lords of chaos anyway who want to see the system break so the private tech solution can be rolled in to solve all problems. This is their answer to everything and our children and teachers are suffering while we sit around waiting for the right level crisis. Like health, like housing, they are waiting for the right bliss point where we will all roll over to whatever 1% serving system will “save us all.”
Or, you can say the years of benign neglect and the collapse on all fronts is just a “regrettable mistake”, from the best people doing their best to help all people the best they can. Laugh out loud.
Will they be striking over rainbow pride week or is that core subject too important to mess with?
Sorry, my bad, that’s the primary school kids isn’t it so all good.
I’m just glad our education priorities are crystal clear and reflected in the attendance and academic achievement statistics.
The PPTA is sleep walking into the reality of what an ACT education minister will mean for them. Education has always been one of the priorities for the Right wing think tanks and policy groups so you just know National and Act will hit the ground running and ACT will push hard in any coalition negotiations for these. ACT exists to decimate public services and especially public education.
If they have an open collective agreement they will absolutely take advantage of it and if history tell us anything the PPTA will give up and quietly accept whatever they are given whenever Labour are not in power.
Until educating our children is based on preparing them for the brutal reality of surviving and thriving in the world that will require literacy, numeracy, financial nous and a sense of independence, self reliance and resilience we will have failed them.
Political correctness, gender ideology and snowflake cop out philosophy has no place in primary and secondary schools.
The last time I had dealings with a man having a flourishing beard like that in the image, he had children that he did not want to have meet and play with other children who were not of the same beliefs. Also he and his wife were going to home school. That child was going to be locked into a male dominant, suspicious world. He said to a woman fellow employee that ‘No female except my wife can touch me’; not even to give a congratulatory pat on the arm.
It may be that this facial fuzz is not the best look for a top official for secondary teachers in the wider community.
Pay peanuts get monkeys .The teachers need a pay scale s9 that people are queuing up for a job then we will get excellence and the end product will soon pay dividends . I believe this is what they did in Singapore and look at their wealth.
Home Schooling seems all the Rage.