New Zealand’s largest education union, NZEI Te Riu Roa, is looking forward to members’ response to a Council of Trade Unions’ proposal to negotiate a unified pay agreement between public sector unions and the Government.
The proposal to join negotiations needs to be voted on and approved by NZEI Te Riu Roa members. Any agreed joint pay increase would also need to be agreed by members.
If members vote to pursue any unified pay rise, union members will still negotiate non-pay elements of their individual collective agreements.
“This is a unique approach taken by the public sector unions,” NZEI Te Riu Roa president Liam Rutherford said.
“We all thought given the rise in the cost of living, increasing job demands and the pressures in responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, a unified approach would be the strongest for members.”
“What this proposal does is allow the public sector to negotiate a fair and transparent pay rise from a position of collective strength.”
Mr Rutherford emphasised this was still only a proposal for members to consider and NZEI Te Riu Roa remained in close dialogue with the CTU and the other public sector unions, which include the New Zealand Nurses’ Organisation, Public Service Association and Post-Primary Teachers’ Association among others.
He said educators would still look to push the Government on reducing class sizes and increase staffing numbers, improve funding for students with high needs, providing greater support for school leaders and finishing the job of funding pay parity in the early childhood sector.
“We know there are a large number of issues in each area of the primary sector that our members still care deeply about and we want to fix,” he said.
“They will continue to advocate for those issues in negotiations for their collective employment agreements while our campaigns to increase education spending in Budget 2023 and get clear commitments from all parties in the lead up to next year's election will only get stronger."
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