Teacher’s strike in cyclone-hit Hawke’s Bay: The case for why it’s still important

PPTA Hawke's Bay chairwoman Cassandra Wilberforce (left) and fellow association members have been in industrial negotiations for months. Photo / Paul Taylor

Cassandra Wilberforce wonders if she’ll be home-schooling her grandchildren one day.

The Hawke’s Bay region chairwoman of the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) doesn’t even have grandkids yet.

But such are her fears for the way the education system is going, she thinks it might prove the best bet for the future generation of her family.

Teachers across the country - including in Hawke’s Bay - are taking strike action on Thursday.

It’s not across the board, with several schools in the region continuing to stay open.

The cyclone’s aftermath has placed too much pressure on parents and kids already, so they’ve accepted an exemption offered to them by the New Zealand Educational Institute.

Wilberforce herself teaches at Flaxmere College and definitely doesn’t relish the idea of a day of lost learning for her students. Ultimately, though, she believes the strike is in the children’s best interests.

“That’s why we’re striking, because we do know what kids need because we’re in the classroom with them every day,” Wilberforce said.

It’s the extent of those needs that appears to be the major issue here.

Much is expected of teachers these days, said Wilberforce. They have to be a friend, confidant and counsellor to many kids.

When they’re not providing arts and cultural expertise, they’re coaching sports teams and driving students to games.

Nights and weekends are dedicated to marking assignments, meetings and professional development and the thing that suffers after all that is the actual teaching.

“Everyone harps on about the pay, but it’s way broader than that,” Wilberforce said.

A former paediatric nurse and independent midwife, Wilberforce has been teaching for 13 years. She had no idea how many peripheral responsibilities fell to teachers and feels many people don’t.

That appears to include the Labour Government, whose collective agreement with teachers expired in June.

“I think they value teachers, but they’re not currently negotiating well with us to meet the needs that we need,” Wilberforce said.

And, yes, part of that does come down to money.

Class sizes are a continual issue and unless they’re reduced, then teachers can’t do the job for which they’re primarily paid, Wilberforce said. But with wages being low, recruitment and retention of teachers is a struggle and more and more becomes demanded of those who are prepared to take on the profession.

The PPTA say that, as of April 1, the take-home hourly rate of someone in a permanent minimum wage job will be $18.24. The take-home pay of a first-year teacher, who is likely to also have a student loan to pay off, will be $18.61 an hour.

“We teach because we want the kids to succeed and we really love our subject areas and giving kids the tools to decide what they want to do with their futures,” Wilberforce said.

But that can’t be achieved while teachers have so many competing obligations and striking is the only way to bring that to the public’s attention.

Hawke’s Bay PPTA members will be showing placards to raise awareness of the issues they face at Stortford Lodge and Taradale Rd on Thursday morning, with others doing volunteer work around the region.

* An earlier version of this article stated incorrectly that some Hawke’s Bay schools had ‘opted out’ of the strike. They have accepted an exemption offered to them by the New Zealand Educational Institute.