Government cuts to pay parity for some early childhood teachers shows the Government isn’t listening to the workers in the sector, said CTU Vice President Rachel Mackintosh.

“All teachers deserve to be paid fairly. We have a shortage of qualified early childhood staff in Aotearoa and are already losing teachers overseas. Reducing pay and conditions for relief teachers won’t make that problem any better,” said Mackintosh.

“With the sector in crisis, the last thing we need is the Government adding more fuel to that fire. The early childhood education sector already has poor teacher-child ratios, an over-burdened workforce, and difficulties in securing learning support for children who need it. Qualified and experienced relief teachers play an essential role in the sector, and reducing their pay won’t help address any of these issues.

“This is just another step in devaluing teachers by this Government. After years of hard work by teaching staff and whānau to get pay parity for this workforce, repealing a key section of it shows that they don’t understand the sector. The only beneficiaries of this decision are agencies providing teaching staff who will make more profit, and for-profit ECE centres that will use it to reduce their costs. It's putting profit before education.

“Our concern is that this is just the start of a campaign against workers, whānau and tamariki by prioritising the wish lists of employers and business as we are seeing in proposed reforms to health and safety and employment legislation.

“The Government must prioritise listening to early childhood teachers and parents who want better and higher quality ECE services with qualified teachers. That means teachers need to be paid well. Taking pay parity away make it worse,” said Mackintosh.

© Scoop Media