KEY POINTS:
No progress has been made today in a dispute between secondary teachers threatening strike action and the Ministry of Education, despite both sides expressing interest in mediation.
The Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) announced yesterday that secondary teachers would strike on September 12 unless the ministry responded to their latest pay claim with a substantially increased offer.
The teachers are seeking improved pay and conditions, with a pay increase of 7.5 per cent over one year. They have so far rejected two offers by the ministry.
The ministry wants to try mediation before the strike action, and the association has said it is happy to meet but does not expect it to resolve anything.
PPTA president Robin Duff responded angrily to comments made today by the ministry.
The ministry's industrial relations senior manager Chris Collins said the ministry was considering teachers' concerns but felt they had had fair pay increases in the past seven years.
"Definitely we take on board their concerns but teachers are on an average salary currently of $64,000 per year and teachers have also had an increase of around 30 per cent in their average pay since 2000," Ms Collins said.
Mr Duff said this was "spin".
"Pay increases have been between 19.7 and 21.9 per cent, roughly the rate of inflation," Mr Duff said.
The 30 per cent was a "false figure," based on total average earnings.
"The second piece of spin is to use 2000 as a baseline for teacher salaries when an alternative disputes resolution panel found in 2002 that teachers had been grossly underpaid. That panel awarded teachers a salary catch up 12 per cent well in excess of the government's offer of 3 per cent."
Mr Duff said the dispute was not only about pay.
It was also about improving conditions to attract and retain the best teachers, reducing class sizes so that every student has adequate time with their teacher, encouraging more people into senior and middle management roles and supporting the part-timers in New Zealand schools, he said.
The PPTA claim was "a very reasonable and very fair claim".
"The disingenuous comments made by the ministry today will simply have got teachers backs up."
- NZPA
