School Support Staff Consider Their Next Move

4th November 2009 For Immediate Release

School Support Staff Consider Their Next Move

Thousands of low paid school support staff are attending paid union meetings around the country to consider their next move in their stalled pay talks.

Their collective agreement expired on March 1 and despite several days of negotiation with the Ministry of Education during the course of the year, there has been no progress and they continue to wait for a fair deal.

School support staff include teacher aides, librarians, office managers, ICT specialists and therapists. They are a frontline and skilled workforce but many are paid as little as $12.94 an hour.

Their fight for better pay is based on the value of the work they do and the improvements they make to children’s learning. Support staff and their union, NZEI have been running a fair pay campaign to improve their pay rates and better recognise their skills. The campaign has highlighted the backing which support staff have from principals, teachers and school communities nationwide.

NZEI National Executive member Gaye Parlane says this round of paid union meetings is critical. “It’s important to get our collective agreement settled before the end of the year. Support staff should not continue to be frozen out of a pay increase which they deserve and they’ve got some big decision to make about where they go from here.”

NZEI says the government’s attitude towards low paid women workers and failure to address their concerns is shameful. Last month the Prime Minister flippantly suggested that support staff could have a pay rise if teachers were willing to forego any increase they receive.

The latest illustration is a decision by a parliamentary select committee to completely sideline a pay equity petition with almost 16,000 signatures, calling on the government to reverse its decision to implement the findings of completed pay and employment equity reviews, abandon future pay equity investigations for school support staff and develop a strategy to eliminate the gender pay gap in New Zealand.

ENDS

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