Defiant teachers braced for school lockouts

Minister of Education Anne Tolley. Photo / APN

The secondary school teachers' union is planning industrial action lasting well into next year and has warned members of the possibility of lockouts in retaliation.

At the Post Primary Teachers' Association annual conference yesterday, president Kate Gainsford said it was possible the Government would respond to further industrial action with lockouts.

The PPTA was likely to call on members to respond with a full-day strike. She said locking teachers out would be "a most incendiary act and provocative in the extreme".

But she said that would be "a typical response" from the Government, which had responded to the September 15 strike with further clawbacks.

Education Minister Anne Tolley dismissed the warning, saying no thought had been given to lockouts. While she could not rule it out, she said it had never been raised as an option.

She urged teachers to return to the negotiating table and issued a warning of her own, saying strike action - especially in an exam term - risked antagonising parents and students.

After a vocal encounter with the primary teachers' union on Monday, Mrs Tolley's reception from the PPTA was cold but civil. She urged teachers to return to the bargaining table but said they had to accept that there was very little money to go round.

She also tried to reassure them she understood the challenges of their jobs, saying her mother was a long-term PPTA member and many in her family were teachers.

The union is seeking a 4 per cent pay increase and went on strike after it was offered 1.5 per cent this year and a further 1 per cent next year. At least eight further strikes are planned for teachers of Year 9, 10 and 11 students in term four and plans have been made to continue the action in 2011 if no resolution is found.

Ms Gainsford said that although the union did want to return to bargaining, it needed assurances that the Government would discuss issues, such as class size and health and safety.

She also defended the teachers' request for a 4 per cent increase, although many other public sector workers settled for far less, saying the teaching profession had problems of recruitment and retention.

"For instance, with the police, there is a queue of people wanting to become police officers. There is no queue for people wanting to become secondary school teachers. That is the problem."

Ms Gainsford rejected Finance Minister Bill English's claims to the Herald yesterday that the strikes were not putting any political pressure on the Government.