Gavin Kay: Secondary school teachers sick of doing all the work

COMMENT

Peter Lyons, in his article on pay parity, says secondary teachers act out of "pecuniary self-interest and bloody-mindedness" and are less benevolent than primary teachers.

This was based on the observation that secondary teachers had taken strong industrial action in the past, and had sought to improve their working conditions through the collective agreement just settled.

Mr Lyons said primary teachers were more altruistic and caring, perhaps because most of them were women and because they spent most of the day with the same pupils.

The basis for these generalisations seemed to be that primary teachers had not taken industrial action recently whereas secondary teachers had.

Perhaps if he were to look beyond the gender stereotypes (and acknowledge that most secondary teachers, too, are women), Mr Lyons might begin to wonder why secondary teachers have had to struggle so hard to get the pay and conditions they deserve, and that are needed to attract and retain high-quality, highly qualified people.

The simple answer is entrenchment. What Mr Lyons calls pay parity is actually something much less benign. The agreement signed between the primary teachers' union, the NZEI, and the Government some years ago was not simply an affirmation of equal pay for work of equal value.

It guaranteed, through the "entrenchment clause", that any improvements in pay won within the secondary teachers' collective agreement were passed on automatically to primary teachers, without the need for their union to make its own case or for their members to take any action.

Primary teachers do an essential and demanding job and they should be well paid for it. But secondary teachers are sick of negotiating their pay and conditions.

The one-third of teachers who work in the secondary sector are sick of having to argue and struggle and take industrial action to achieve results that flow in two-thirds to another group.

This means the Government is not able to consider secondary teachers' claims on their own merits; it has to factor in the automatic flow-on to the primary sector. This sees many worthwhile innovations and improvements junked because the flow-on would make them too costly.

It is no wonder that secondary teachers had to take to the streets in 2001 and 2002. They were fighting not only for their own salary increases but for those of twice as many primary teachers, who were able to sit back and wait, earning the approval of people like Mr Lyons for their "altruism" and "benevolence", while knowing they did not have to take action on their own behalf.

Mr Lyons is right that the new secondary agreement is tailored to meet the workload needs of secondary teachers (while maintaining salaries at an adequate level). That is perfectly natural and necessary.

It in no way seeks to undermine primary teachers; it is simply that the business of the Post Primary Teachers' Association is to work to meet the needs of its members, as any union should.

In this case, those needs were to maintain salaries at an adequate level, to consolidate improvements in working conditions, and to open up new professional pathways.

The agreement does all of those things and more, and without the need for any industrial action. Evidently, lessons have been learned by both sides.

The agreement is a major achievement for the secondary sector, and will enable teachers to put their energies wholeheartedly into professional matters and into meeting the needs of their students, which is surely how it should be.

The major improvements in the secondary sector over the past few years have not been gained by good luck, by being benevolent and altruistic, or even by making a well-researched and reasonable case.

They have been fought for by secondary teachers, as anything worthwhile needs to be fought for.

* Gavin Kay, the PPTA executive member for Counties-Manukau, is responding to Otago University foundation studies lecturer Peter Lyons' view that the union has undermined pay parity through shrewd bargaining.