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Special Education Negotiators Settle Pay Deal
For immediate release October 17, 2003
From: NZEI Te Riu
Roa Media Release
Ms03/41
Special Education Negotiators Settle Pay Deal
A settlement has been reached in the industrial dispute involving more than 600 special education field staff.
The settlement follows two weeks of industrial action in which the field staff imposed a number of work bans.
They took the action after eight months of negotiations failed to deliver an acceptable pay offer.
Negotiations resumed this week and agreement was reached on a settlement package.
The settlement
package, which is subject to ratification by the field
staff, includes
- Payment of a $500 lump sum.
- Two
pay rises of 2.5%, the first taking affect next month, the
second in November next year.
- A 2.5% increase in the
higher duties allowance
- Improvements at the top end of
their salary bands for some of the field staff.
-
Agreement by the Ministry to discuss, within the term of the
collective agreement, the development of a unified pay scale
for all the field staff.
- Agreement by the Ministry to
discuss, within term of the agreement, pay comparisons with
the education sector.
- Agreement to address other issue
such as professional development and workloads.
The industrial action has been suspended and field staff will be attending meetings throughout the country to vote on the package.
“The negotiating team is recommending they accept the settlement package as it represents a substantial improvement on the Ministry’s earlier position and addresses most of the significant issues in the claim,” says NZEI Te Riu Roa National President, Bruce Adin.
The field staff are psychologists, speech language therapists, special education advisors, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, early intervention teachers, advisors on deaf students and kaitakawaenga who work with Maori students and their whanau.
They work with students at early childhood, primary and secondary level who have a range of physical, behavioural and other special educational needs. They also provide support for their families and the staff in the schools and early childhood education centres the students attend.
They are members of NZEI Te Riu Roa,
which also represents early childhood teachers, primary
teachers and principals, support staff in primary and
secondary schools and school
advisers.
ENDS
NZEI Te Riu Roa
New Zealand Educational Institute
NZEI Te Riu Roa members work in every community in New Zealand, leading and advocating for quality public education.
We are the 50,000 principals, teachers and support staff who work in primary, area and secondary schools as well as early childhood centres, special education and school advisory services. We come together as NZEI Te Riu Roa - New Zealand's largest education union, a Treaty based organisation and a powerful advocate for quality public education.
We have the most important job in New Zealand - educating for the future.
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