Progress on teacher, nurse pay disputes

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

Pay disputes between teacher and nurse unions and their respective ministries have reached milestones on the way towards resolution.

The pressure to reach deals before a potential change of government to one likely to be less sympathetic will be one factor. Public fatigue with strike action will be another, particularly when it affects our young people who have already missed too much schooling during the pandemic then severe weather events.

On Monday it was revealed that an arbitration panel has recommended secondary school teachers should get a 14.5 percent pay rise spread over three instalments. That is midway between what the ministry offered and what the Post-Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) had been seeking when negotiations broke down.

Because of the failure to reach agreement, secondary teachers have not had a pay rise since July 1, 2021.

If the recommendation is accepted by both parties, as it is expected to be, the Ministry of Education must offer changes to the unified base salary scale to primary and kindergarten teachers also, under pay parity rules.

The increase would mean starting pay for most new secondary teachers would be $64,082 by the start of 2025, up from $55,948 now. Pay rates for teachers at the top of the scale would go from $90,000 to $103,085.

The panel also recommended one-off payments of $5000 for all teachers, a further $1500 for PPTA members, and up to $710 to cover teaching practising certificate renewal. A union request for allowances for teachers with advanced te reo Māori knowledge was knocked back in favour of a trial of 335 community liaison roles which would have a small amount of release time from other duties and $1000 payments. The panel said a new body should be created to improve relations between the Ministry of Education and the PPTA.

Also on Monday, it was announced that nurses and healthcare assistants employed by Te Whatu Ora had voted to accept a historic gender equity pay settlement that will see some receive up to $28,000 in lump sums and backpay. The settlement doesn’t include nurses who are not employed in the public sector, prompting new equity and staffing concerns for those nurses and the organisations that employ them.

The gender pay equity breakthrough came a month ago when the Government announced it was boosting its offer by $1.5 billion, to $4bn, in a bid to end the long-running dispute.

That added to a 14 percent increase paid to registered nurses, enrolled nurses and health assistants in April this year as an interim pay equity adjustment. Te Whatu Ora also paid out lump sums of $10,000 last March.

Senior full-time nurses will earn between $105,704 and $153,060, plus penal rates. Other registered nurses will earn between $69,566 and $99,630 per annum, also plus penal rates.

This deal does not mean the threat of a 24-hour strike mid-next week has been averted — that will depend on the outcome of a vote this week on a separate collective agreement offer from Te Whatu Ora, for a flat-rate salary increase of $4000-$5000 and a further 3 percent next year.