This month, unionised teachers all over Aotearoa have taken strike action in an effort to secure improved pay and conditions. Charlotte Muru-Lanning explains why some teachers are going back on strike today.

Thousands of secondary and area school teachers across the country will put down their whiteboard markers and pick up their eye-catching placards today as union members strike for the second time this month.

It follows New Zealand’s largest teachers’ strike on March 16, which saw around 50,000 kindergarten teachers, primary, area and secondary school teachers and principals stopping work for the day to communicate their demands for higher staffing numbers, school funding and pay after both New Zealand Educational Institute Te Riu Roa (NZEI), the union for primary and kindergarten teachers, and the Post Primary Teachers Association Te Wehengarua (PPTA) members rejected an offer from the government, with collective agreement negotiations ongoing since May 2022.

Here’s a rundown on this week’s teacher strikes.

What’s going on?

After a vote via electronic ballot last week, thousands of secondary and area school teacher members of PPTA Te Wehengarua made the decision to take further nationwide industrial action. Today’s strike will affect around 300,000 students across the country and will see rallies and marches around Aotearoa. 

Primary and kindergarten teachers of NZEI Te Riu Roa that took part in strike action alongside secondary teachers two weeks ago have ruled out joining this strike as they wait for another offer from the Ministry of Education.  

Why are they striking?

According to a press release from the PPTA, their 20,000 members want to see their salaries increased to match inflation, more guidance staff to work with increasing numbers of students struggling with mental health, greater recognition of kaiako Māori and more effective controls on workload.

“We have been in negotiations for a new collective agreement since May last year so there has been plenty of time for the government to make us an acceptable offer. Sadly, that hasn’t happened,” PPTA Te Wehengarua acting president Chris Abercrombie said in a press release.

The PPTA has linked the strike action to the ongoing shortage of secondary teachers, too, saying: “Improvements to both teacher salaries and working conditions are essential to keep experienced and skilled teachers in the job, attract top graduates to become secondary teachers and encourage thousands of ex-teachers to return to the profession they left.”

On March 24, the union wrote that they would consider calling off the planned strike if there was “a genuine pathway to an agreement that members would vote for”.

“After three years of constant disruption, secondary teachers would love nothing more than a settled 2023 for our students and ourselves,” said Abercrombie.

How much do teachers get paid?

The current starting rate for qualified teachers in both primary, secondary and kindergarten is $51,358. To put that in context, minimum wage-earners will only earn $1.99 less an hour than the pay received by starting teachers if teacher pay does not move by April 1. 

How much were teachers offered?

As part of the negotiations, the Government offered a $4,000 pay rise for each teacher this year followed by about another $2,000 next year. So, starting teachers on $51,358 a year at the moment have been offered $55,358. 

Why did they turn down the offer?

The offer is sub-inflationary, meaning that in real terms if they accepted the offer the union says they would effectively be agreeing to a pay cut.

The PPTA said the offer equates to an increase of 4.4% this year and 2.1% next year. Taking into account both inflation and the time that has passed since the current agreement expired, the offer came to a 10% pay decrease in real terms, the union told The Herald.

Abercrombie said the PPTA wanted a commitment from the government that students would have specialist teachers for every subject as well as pay and conditions that will keep teachers in the profession and attract new teachers.

Secondary teachers are also calling for more guidance staff to work with the increasing number of students with mental health issues, and controls on their workload. The offer they rejected proposed about a third of the guidance staff required, according to the union, and a working group to look at their workload after the agreement was signed.

How often do secondary teachers strike?

Before this month’s strikes, the last time secondary teachers did so was in 2019. The 2019 “mega-strike” saw over 50,000 primary and high school teachers strike across the country – at the time, it was the biggest industrial action ever seen in New Zealand’s schools.

Is there more industrial action on the way?

In addition to the national strike today, further industrial action has also been planned for the second school term. Rather than full-day nationwide strikes like today’s, however, teachers will take other forms of action.

In the second week of term two, students will have a day off rostered for each year level. In the third week of term two, rolling strikes will be held, meaning that teachers will strike on different days in different regions starting at one end of Aotearoa and finishing at the other.

PPTA Te Wehengarua members have also suggested they will not be attending meetings outside of school hours from term two.

Members will also continue to refuse to give up their scheduled planning and marking time to  relieve classes in an explicit effort to highlight the shortage of teachers. “There are teacher vacancies that cannot be filled because no-one is applying for the jobs,” the PPTA says.

“Up until now, teachers’ goodwill has been used to mask the growing secondary teacher shortage. That is no longer an option. It is time for the government to move away from insubstantial platitudes and to take the real and meaningful steps needed to deal with it before the widening cracks in the system become a crisis.”

What has the government’s response been?

Ahead of the strikes earlier this month on the AM Show, education minister Jan Tinetti acknowledged that working conditions and pay for teachers were “not good enough”. 

Tinetti, who is also a former principal, said: “I’ve been involved in education for a long time, it has been my life’s work and I absolutely appreciate what teachers do, and I’m working really hard to get the best that we can for the teachers.”