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Urgent funding needed to lift education workers' wage
Urgent funding needed to lift education workers to legal
minimum wage next week
28 March 2019
The rise in the minimum wage on 1 April will see a 7.3% increase for some education workers - but with no funding to pay the new rates.
NZEI Te Riu Roa President Lynda Stuart says the Government needs to urgently contribute new funding to resource schools and ECE services to pay the new rates, as Budget 2018 only increased their operational funding by 1.6%.
"We need an immediate increase to the operations grant, which schools use to pay for running costs, including support staff wages. Otherwise, the Government is giving with one hand and taking with the other. The same pertains to ECE," she said.
"Some teacher aides, for example, will need to move up as many as four pay steps from $16.50 to the new minimum of $17.70. We welcome the increase in pay, but this highlights the appallingly low remuneration of education staff by successive Governments."
Some teachers on the lowest pay step will also be moving up to the new minimum hourly rate, while unqualified staff teaching in schools and ECE services and after school care services would be paid under the legal minimum from next week if they do not move up at least one pay step.
NZEI is calling on the Government to commit urgently to boosting funding for schools and ECE centres to cover the increases for support staff, and to make immediate changes to the wage steps in various collective agreements the Ministry of Education is party to.
NZEI President Lynda Stuart said that without additional funding to fill the gap, schools and centres may be forced to cut the hours of low-paid support staff to balance their tight budgets.
“The significant increase to the current minimum wage is a very positive move by the Government, but as it also funds the education sector, it is the Government's responsibility to ensure that schools and centres are able to pay staff without cutting their hours. Otherwise, children's learning is put at risk,” she said.
NZEI National Secretary Paul Goulter has written to the Secretary of Education, Iona Holsted, urging her to make the necessary changes as soon as possible.
The following schooling sector collective agreements have rates below the new minimum wage:
First 3 steps of the Kaiarahi scale, all
Special Education Assistant rates and the first 5 steps of
the ATSSD scale
First 4 steps of the Support Staff in
Schools Collective Agreement (SSCA) (currently $16.12 an
hour, $16.88, $17.27 and $17.66 - those on the $16.12 step
would already be getting the current minimum of
$16.50.)
Steps A1 and A2 in the Area School Teachers
Collective Agreement (ASTCA) (currently $33,748 and
$35,215)
Step 1 of the Primary Teachers Collective
Agreement (PTCA) (currently $36, 692)
All rates for
untrained teachers in the PTCA ($32,456 -$33,868) (Paid to
those with Limited Authority to Teach (LAT) and teachers
still awaiting confirmation of their
qualifications).
Collective Agreements for Kindergartens
with rates below the new minimum wage:
Step 1 of the
Kindergarten Teachers Collective Agreement (KTCA) (currently
$36, 692)
The three steps of the Kindergarten Support
Staff Collective agreement in-training rates (currently
$16.63, $17.07 and $17.50)
The Early Childhood Education
Collective Agreement (ECECA), which sets funding rates for
the wider sector (and has seen wage rates constrained by the
lack of funding increases to ECE):
The first three steps
of the unqualified teacher/Kaiako rate in the ECECA
(currently $16.87, $17.02 and $17.34)
The first step in
the out of school care supervisor (currently $17.37) and
assistant supervisor scales (currently $16.95) and all three
steps for the out of school care employee in the ECECA
(Currently $16.67, $16.82 and $16.98)
The first two steps
for administrative workers in the ECECA (currently $16.67
and $16.97).
NZEI Te Riu Roa is seeking to vary these ECE
agreements with the New Zealand Kindergarten association and
Te Rito Maioho respectively but reiterates that a funding
boost from Government will be necessary to meet these
costs.
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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