Assurance on teachers’ rights

Press, 14 June 1980, Page 6

Assurance on teachers’ rights

PA Wellington The Government is not taking away from teachers’ organisations the right to negotiate and refer conditions of service to arbitration. says the Minister of State Services (Mr Thomson). Mr Thomson said he had seen reports about stopwork meetings of tutors in technical institutes, called to discuss the Government’s intention to amend the State Services Conditions of Employment Act. “Some of these reports have suggested this amendment will mean that teacher organisations will no longer be able to refer any conditions of service, other than salaries, to arbitration under the act, but this is not so,” he said.

“After discussions with the association of teachers

in technical institutes and the Combined State Unions, the Government has decided to introduce a bill to amend the 1977 act.

“This amendment will not affect the ability of teacher organisations to negotiate and refer to arbitration any conditions of service other than hours of work, including classroom hours. “Over-all hours of work and classroom hours have not been dealt with under the act in the past. Instead, they have been regarded as professional matters which are appropriately the subject of consultation and discussion with teacher organisations rather than industrial negotiations or arbitration,

“The amendment to the act will simply ensure that this continues to be the case,” Mr Thomson said.