P.M. wrong om salary stance, say teachers

Press, 4 February 1986, Page 9

P.M. wrong om salary stance, say teachers

Secondary teachers have learned that patience does not pay in salary disputes, says the Post Primary Teachers’ Association’s president, Mr Peter Allen. Mr Allen was commenting on the Cabinet decision yesterday to refer the teachers’ pay claim to the Cabinet Policy Committee meeting next Tuesday. “We began (negotiating) in October last year,” Mr Allen said. “We have followed all of the procedures required of us under the State Services Act. We negotiated to a point where we believed an agreement had been achieved.

“We know that other sectors of the State service appear not to have followed those procedures and appear to have got quicker results. There is a clear message in that — that patience is not rewarded.” Teachers would not back down on their claim, Mr Allen said. The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, was wrong to say that the P.P.T.A. accepted the Government could not agree to its claim. Mr Lange suggested yesterday that the eightday deferment would give the association a chance to come up with a counter proposal. Teachers’ representatives had indicated over the week-end that they realised the Government could not agree to the “substantial claim” now on the table, he said. Mr Lange also said ■teachers had shown they did not want to reach an impasse. Mr Allen said Mr Lange’s first conclusion was incorrect. “We have a salary package which we negoti-

ated with the Education Services Committee and which was settled at the end of December. That is the package we will want to continue to explore with the Government. That package has been settled as the minimum way of solving a serious staffing problem in secondary schools.” Mr Allen said secondary schools were short of at least 350 teachers. While the P.P.T.A. welcomed the chance for further discussions with the Government, teachers were becoming worried at the length of time negotiations were taking, he said.

Meetings were planned round New Zealand to report to teachers. Canterbury teachers will meet on February 14. Teachers have not decided whether to hold the meeting during school hours. Mr Allen said teachers expected settlement of the dispute by early next week. “Otherwise I’m sure we will be into another round of meetings to decide what to do.” The Minister of Education, Mr Marshall, said yesterday that the teachers’ claim, amounting to about $5l million, had not been rejected outright, NZPA reports.

The Cabinet had felt that although the P.P.T.A. had come down substantially from an initial request for an $86.5 million package, the claim was still too high, he said.

“In the meantime it is hoped there will be further discussion between the Government and P.P.T.A. representatives. We would clearly prefer it to be less than $51.5 million.”

The gap between the original Government offer of $l4 million and the teachers’ claim of $B6 million was “vast, and the P.P.T.A. couldn’t settle for that,” he said.