Secondary teachers slam joint union

By ALAN PERROTT education reporter

A proposal to create an education super-union received a hostile reaction from the secondary school teachers' union, the PPTA.

The amalgamation was mooted yesterday at the annual meeting of the NZEI, the 42,000-strong early childhood and primary school teachers' union.

Four hundred NZEI representatives endorsed a discussion document setting out steps towards uniting the unions.

"Incredibly arrogant and presumptuous," was the reaction from PPTA president Phil Smith, who said the voice of secondary teachers would be drowned out in such a large organisation.

"We are not saying one sector is any more important ... but their needs are completely different.

"I couldn't work in early childhood education, and they couldn't do my job," said Mr Smith, head of the history department at James Hargest High School, Invercargill.

He said the PPTA suspected the proposal was a jackup between the NZEI and the Government to reduce the militancy of secondary teachers.

Mr Smith said NZEI members already rode on the coat-tails of PPTA work, especially through the entrenchment clause stating that any gains made by the PPTA must then be offered to the other union regardless of whether their contract had already been settled.

He labelled the clause "morally reprehensible" and said it made secondary teachers' efforts to gain higher pay more difficult as it magnified the cost imposed on the Government.

NZEI president Bruce Adin said the PPTA's response was disappointing but predictable.

He said they were trying to set out a long-term vision that could eventually see all teachers sharing the same professional organisation.

Mr Adin said their proposal was more concerned with professional issues affecting all teachers, such as registration and a code of conduct, rather than industrial strength.

The Government was not involved in the proposal, he said, but added that the professional direction encouraged by the Government would sit comfortably with the NZEI.

Mr Adin did not have a timetable for unification and said visible changes could be several years away.

Primary and secondary teachers already share the same pay scale, which will be expanded in 2006 to include kindergarten teachers.

The NZEI is also seeking to have all its members covered by a single collective agreement. At present there are separate collectives for primary schools, area schools, composite schools and the correspondence school.