2025 Primary Teachers Collective Agreement Draft Claim - FAQs
Frequently asked questions about your collective agreement draft claim are below. If you have a question that isn’t listed, you can submit it here. We’ll update this page regularly with questions as we get them.
Q. How was the draft claim decided?
A. Thousands of teachers from hundreds of schools held school discussions in term one to discuss a draft claim concept (the things you might want to see in your new collective agreement such as improvements to pay and PLD).This was informed by the priorities raised by members in paid union meetings in 2024. Your negotiation team read and analysed the feedback, identified the areas that were both deeply felt and consistently identified as important and used these to create your draft claim.
Q. Why isn’t there more detail about each part of the claim?
A. The bargaining process is about your negotiating team raising your collective aspirations, the issues that want addressed, the solutions we want to suggest and engaging in discussion with the Ministry of Education about options to address these things. At this stage of the process we have not defined all the specific details that you would see in a final settlement as this is something that we do through the bargaining process and you consider whenever an offer is made.
Q. What is the relationship between the draft claim and teachers’ campaign goals of increasing staffing and learning support?
A. Teachers (along with principals and support staff) identified increasing staffing, particularly learning support and teacher aide staffing, and a Ministry-funded staffing entitlement of teacher aides, as a priority. Not all staffing increases you need can be achieved through collective agreement negotiations, but your draft claim is intended to be consistent with those campaign goals. Teachers are bargaining at the same time as support staff and principals, and they are also asking Government to address these issues. This creates a union-wide political campaign which pressures Government to address the school staffing shortage. Collectively speaking to this shared goal of our claims is how we will achieve whānau, community and political support.
Q. The issues teachers at my school raised aren’t in the claim. Why not?
A. There were a broad range of ideas raised about what should be in the claim, with strongest overall support for a strategic approach based around the three themes of value, respect and support. The items in the draft claim reflect these three themes. Issues such as the value of allowances that were consistently raised by teachers from across the country have also been incorporated.
Q. Why hasn’t a specific percentage pay increase been included.
A. Teacher feedback was consistent; matching or bettering CPI and pay parity were the two most important issues when it comes to pay. The Ministry will already have been briefed by Government on the amount they can spend to settle your collective agreement and wage increase they can offer. If their amount is inconsistent with your position your negotiation team will say so. Ultimately the purpose of the wider bargaining process (negotiations and the other actions teachers take) is to persuade Government to put more money into a settlement if their offer is not acceptable to teachers.
Q. The claim calls for more units. How would these be allocated?
A. The overall intention is to increase opportunities for teachers to access leadership roles and be fairly remunerated for these. Specific details of how this, and any other part of the claim, will be implemented will need to be negotiated as part of the bargaining process if agreement on that matter is reached. Your negotiation team will seek input from wider groups of members around details and aspects of the claim as negotiations proceed.
Q. What is the difference between pay parity and pay equity?
A. Pay parity is the idea that teaching (whether primary, secondary or early childhood) is remunerated at the same level. On Tuesday 6 May, Government announced radical changes to the current Equal Pay Act impacting significantly on the teachers’ pay equity claim. More on these changes here.
Q. The claim calls for staffing to provide for Learning Support Coordinators or SENCOs. Why not one or the other?
A. Schools have developed different ways of supporting and coordinating learning support that work for them so it’s important that they have flexibility to continue resourcing these roles in a way that works for them. The main ask of this part of the claim is that all schools should get specific staffing to provide for this need, which is currently not the case.
Q. What if I agree with part of the draft claim but not another part?
A. You are voting on the draft claim in its entirety. The draft claim was developed using teachers’ feedback from term one. The asks reflect strong support for a claim based on an interconnected framework of value, support and respect.
Q. What is the time frame for negotiations?
A. Once a claim has been agreed by members your team will be ready to begin negotiations. Approaches to Government negotiators have been made to set dates but none have been agreed yet.
Q. Who negotiates for the Government?
A. In early May it was announced that the responsibility for negotiations would shift from the Ministry of Education to the Public Service Commission. The Public Service Commissioner has overall responsibility for collective bargaining across the public service.
Q. How are the threats to Resource Teacher Māori and Literacy and teachers in Kahui Ako roles being addressed?
A. Specific provisions relating to reduction or disestablishment of these roles already exist in your employment agreement. If Government proceeds with proposals to scrap these roles, the first response of NZEI Te Riu Roa will be to hear from these teachers on their preferences and priorities.
Q. Is the part of the claim calling for increases to Learning Support Coordinator and SENCO roles at the expense of resource teacher staffing?
A. Your negotiation team will be representing the position of teachers that there is a need for an increase in learning support specialist roles and that this should not happen in one area at the expense of another.