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Secondary school teachers are stepping up industrial actions as the new term begins, with a cascade of partial strikes planned.
Most schools head back to the classroom on Monday for the start of term 2, but not necessarily back to business as usual.
Partial strikes have been planned (details below) by the Post Primary Teachers' Association Te Wehengarua (PPTA) in the hopes of securing a better deal for teachers in collective agreement negotiations.
Education Ministry makes fresh attempt to settle teacher pay
The stalled negotiations between the PPTA and the Ministry of Education over the contract began nearly a year ago. And the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) has said it is preparing to intervene to help facilitate the negotiations between the organisations, after a request from the ministry.
The union had consistently called for pay rises that kept them up with inflation, about seven percent. They had already turned down an offer of a $6000 pay rise over two years, saying that was about half the rate of inflation for most teachers.
PPTA negotiating team member Kieran Gainsford said a shortage of secondary teachers was getting worse and better salary and conditions were needed to address the problem.
Warnings teacher shortage may worsen as relievers quit
"Our members are telling us that they are leaving teaching or they are considering leaving teaching," he said. What we need is for people to be attracted to the profession and to stay in it, and to bring some of our former teachers back," Gainsford said.
"We would much prefer to be beginning the term in a settled environment but after 11 months of negotiations we haven't been able to make satisfactory progress on some major issues".
One sticking point that had been raised seemed to be the ministry's deference to guidance issued by the Public Service Commission on pay rises for public servants (the Public Sector Pay Adjustment (PSPA) ). Firm brakes were placed on pay rises in 2020, under the economic cloud of Covid-19, however there was some indication last month that those brakes could be relaxed in some cases.
Gainsford was hopeful a new look at the problem could help the parties make progress.
"The [ERA], in its decision to direct us to facilitated bargaining, acknowledged that potential constraint of the Public Sector Pay Adjustment on any pay offer from the ministry appeared to be a key feature of why agreement on remuneration had not been possible so far.
"We're hopeful that having an independent facilitator will enable us to break through this impasse and avert further industrial action."
What are the planned actions?
From Monday, union members plan to refuse to relieve for absent teachers or to attend meetings outside school hours.
From next week, they would not teach some years of students - changing between the year levels on different days.
And if the strike continued into the third week they would strike on different days in different regions.
Gainsford said there had not been enough progress on the collective agreement negotiations with the ministry, and the country's future could be harmed if no progress was made on negotiations.
"Every day the collective agreement remains unsettled, the further our pay and conditions slip backward and the more difficult it is to encourage people to stay in teaching or to come teaching. It is fantastic and incredibly important work, but it needs to be valued appropriately.
"Our rangatahi need specialist teachers for every subject and they need kaiako who can bring their best selves to the job through manageable workloads."