Staff Vote To Accept Pay Rise And More Leave

March 1, 2007

School Support Staff Vote To Accept Pay Rise And More Leave

School support staff have voted to accept new collective agreements negotiated by their union, the New Zealand Educational Institute, that deliver a 3% pay rise, enhanced annual leave entitlements and enable them to be paid during term breaks.

The two agreements cover more than 10,700 support staff who belong to NZEI Te Riu Roa and work in primary and secondary schools and kura kaupapa Maori. They work as teacher aides, therapists, office managers, kaiarahi i te reo and in more than 80 other job designations.

The two 12 month agreements provide school support staff with:

 A 3% pay increase effective from January 3, 2007.
 An ability to spread their salaries across the whole year, so they can be paid during school term breaks.
 Enhanced annual leave entitlements.
 A new pay scale for therapists employed by schools.

“School support staff had to battle to gain these improvements in their pay and working conditions,” says Irene Cooper, the National President of NZEI Te Riu Roa.

They rejected an earlier offer primarily because the Government’s reponse to their claim for additional annual leave for long serving support staff was inadequate. This meant a return to the negotiating table which produced an improved offer that has now been accepted.

“It’s vital we continue to acknowledge and reward long serving support staff so schools can retain their skills and experience,” says Irene Cooper “Schools are losing too many experienced
support staff to the private sector, where the pay, job security and leave provisions are far better.”

While support staff welcome the pay rise and improved conditions, provided by the new agreements, they remain one of the lowest paid and least secure workforces in the country. This is because they’re bulk funded from each schools’ operations grant, and as two major reviews show, schools struggle to pay their support staff from these grants.

“Both the Ministry of Education and ERO found, in reports released last December, that schools are finding it difficult to pay their support staff from their ops grants,” says Irene Cooper.

The Ministry recommends that the Government establish a workstream “to consider how the support staff workforce might best be supported and resourced to fufill their roles in our schools in the future.”

“It’s crucial the Government establish this workstream as soon as possible so we can start developing a fairer and more effective way of funding support staff,” says Irene Cooper.

“This will enable us to begin negotiating pay and conditions, that recognise the essential work support staff perform in schools, when we return to the negotiating table later this year.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media