Hardline teachers fire up election

By DITA DE BONI and NZPA

School restarts today with the likelihood of wildcat strikes within hours by secondary teachers unhappy that their 14-month dispute was not resolved during the holidays.

Rostering home of students will begin again on Wednesday, disrupting Year 13 (form 7) classes first, followed by Year 12 on Thursday and Year 11 on Friday.

This is despite the Ministry of Education last week offering "alternative dispute resolution" as a new solution.

The threat of more industrial action comes as the National Party declares education its top election issue and accuses the Government of doing little to end the dispute.

National leader Bill English said Education Minister Trevor Mallard was trying to push the issue past July 27 by proposing arbitration.

"The PPTA can't enter into arbitration without a vote from teachers and that could take two weeks," he said.

The non-binding arbitration proposal has yet to be put to all 14,000 Post Primary Teachers Association members, who must agree to drop all further industrial action before the process can begin.

After a lengthy conference call last night the PPTA executive decided to take Mr Mallard's suggestion of arbitration to members, but not before some issues in the proposal were clarified.

PPTA head Jen McCutcheon said the union would be proceeding "very cautiously" with the arbitration idea. She did not know how long it would take to sort out the issues before members could start to vote on accepting the proposal, but it was unlikely that the process would be finished before the election.

Yet some PPTA members who spoke to the Herald yesterday said that, proposal or not, they expected some teachers to walk off the job today in protest over still being without a firm resolution.

The possibility of two- and three-day strikes has also been raised.

The PPTA confirmed yesterday that a day-long general strike was scheduled for Friday, July 26, the day before the election.

Mrs McCutcheon said the alternative dispute resolution proposed by the Government - in which an "independent" panel of three would make non-binding recommendations after listening to both parties - was "incredibly premature".

"They've presented it as a fait accompli but it still has to be considered by the executive and members."

She said the PPTA believed the dispute could still be resolved at the bargaining table.

PPTA negotiators and the Government have agreed on two of the proposed three-member arbitration panel.

They are Bruce Murray, former cricket international and principal of Tawa College in Wellington, and Doug Martin, management consultant and state sector specialist. A chairman has yet to be appointed.

Announcing the initiative on Friday, Mr Mallard said the Government would not specify for the panel an "upper limit" of cash to award teachers but the members would have to be aware of the flow-on effects to the whole state sector of any pay awarded.

The minister said that while he was uncomfortable with the precedent set by the dispute and the proposed resolution, he believed negotiations had come to an impasse and that ongoing disruption was beginning to have an effect on students' education.

"Some staffrooms are currently poisonous places."

Yesterday, Mr English put forward the National Party's own proposals to end the deadlock and said education was the main election issue.

Included in National's plan to end the dispute are:* Negotiate a pay offer similar to the 1999 settlement (3.5 per cent a year) and offer a $2000 allowance for the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) to get teachers back to school.

* Open negotiations on a professional pay structure that rewarded quality and professionalism, and paid good teachers more.

* Delay level two of the NCEA for Year 12 until teacher workload pressures and other problems around it are resolved.



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