PPTA members support additional salary claim

Members of PPTA Te Wehengarua, the secondary school teachers’ union, have overwhelmingly supported lodging an additional pay claim in their upcoming collective agreement negotiations now that new pay equity law has locked them out of any future process.

“This additional claim recognises that a pay equity claim process is no longer available to us, because of the changes that were steamrolled through Parliament to fill gaping holes in the Budget,” says Chris Abercrombie, PPTA Te Wehengarua president.

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The claim, along with others, will be presented by PPTA when negotiations for the Secondary Teachers’ Collective Agreement begin next Tuesday 17 June.

The new equal pay law prevents secondary teachers from making a future pay equity claim as they do not meet the new threshold of being in a profession that is made up of at least 70% women.  New comparator rules also lock teachers out from pay equity claims as the education sector is female-dominated.

Chris Abercrombie said teachers were further dismayed to learn this week that Education Minister Erica Stanford did not receive any advice about what the changes to the equal pay legislation would mean for 90 000 teachers, who were part of the largest claim that was extinguished.

“It would seem an absolutely fundamental thing to do, as a Cabinet Minister considering changes to legislation, to find out what the impact of those changes will be for the people you are responsible for in your portfolio. Clearly, however, filling massive holes in the Budget was all that mattered.”

The revelation about the lack of any advice follows an admission from Employment Relations Minister Brooke Van Velden earlier this week that no-one was consulted about the changes, apart from Cabinet Ministers.

“This demonstrates an unbelievable lack of regard for working people, and for democracy in Aotearoa New Zealand.”