Kindergarten teachers have voted to accept their latest collective agreement offer.
The offer sees several significant gains for teachers including sick leave increased to 15 days, a cultural allowance for kaiako Māori, and increases to head teacher professional time.
NZEI Te Riu Roa kindergarten members undertook strike action earlier this year and rejected two previous offers before receiving this improved offer which included substantial change on key claims.
"This was the first strike action that kindergarten teachers have taken in decades. We knew that what we were fighting for was worth it for the wellbeing of kaiako and tamariki,” kindergarten teacher and negotiating team member Reweti Elliott says.
The cultural allowance is the first recognition for kaiako Māori in kindergarten, an allowance regularly recognised in primary and secondary schools.
"Valued and respected'
“A dear friend wrote me a whakataukī for the process: ‘Kapohia te toi runga’, which means ‘to strive for excellence in all we do'. It is a big responsibility to hold te reo and tikanga in our kindergartens and support tamariki in that journey. Kaiako Māori can now feel valued and respected in their mahi.”
However, Elliott says there is still much more work to be done in the early childhood area and kindergarten teachers are working alongside workers across the ECE sector to push for further change.
“The early childhood sector is in crisis. We will be using the Fair Pay Agreement process to push for change on the many unresolved issues including inadequate ratios, non-contact time and pay for our relievers and head teachers."
Meanwhile, primary school teachers. who have also been negotiating their own collective bargaining agreements. rejected their latest offer.
Lead negotiator for the Primary Teachers’ Collective Agreement negotiation team, Barb Curran, says the vote reflects primary teachers’ frustration that the pressures they are facing in the classroom and from the cost of living crisis were not being adequately recognised by the government.
Class size issue
She says the negotiation team will now be informing the Ministry of Education it wants to resume negotiations.
“This offer clearly did not meet members’ expectations sufficiently to settle our agreement. They want an offer that swiftly delivers additional time and staffing to enable teachers to support students. And they want a pay offer that will pay the bills, having seen no pay rise since July 2021 while the CPI has increased at record levels.”
The government recently announced changes to the education system, including reducing classroom ratios, to help ease the pressure on teachers. Curran said while that was welcomed, teachers felt it is too little and ‘not fast enough’.
The issue with high teacher-to-student ratios has been recognised by the minister but staffing issues have been going on for decades and we need to see commitments to a plan for much more meaningful class size reductions as swiftly as possible,” Ms Curran says.
She says that the fact that teachers have been negotiating since July last year is not helping members feel valued.
Slow negotiations
“Members are feeling frustrated with the lack of progress, they’ve been almost a year without a signed agreement now because of the slow pace of negotiations.”
Kindergarten members say they continue to support their primary colleagues as they continue to find an offer they can accept.
The PPTA Te Wehengarua executive board is expected to make a decision on the latest offer for Secondary School teachers in the coming days.
