Threat by primary teachers

Press, 13 May 1981, Page 1

Threat by primary teachers

PA Wellington Primary teachers were close to industrial action, the president of the Education Institute, Mr E. Nightingale, said yesterday.

The institute decided at the Labour Party conference in Wellington yesterday to lodge immediately a pay claim seeking wage parity with secondary teaches.

Mr Nightingale said that action from his 17,500 members could include stopwork meetings and possibly strikes. “There could be a year of turmoil,” he said. “It depends on our negotiations. If we don’t make progress then members will be called on to inform the public of their opinion and opposition. This could include industrial action.”

During the debate at the conference, the delegates switched their anger from

the Government Service Tribunal to the Education Service Committee, which initially hears the teachers’ award claims. The committee, comprising Government and parent representatives, was directly influenced.by Government political thinking, delegates said. Some teachers turned against their executive for failing in the last award talks and demanded professional counsel and negotiators. Mr N. B. Lambert (Southland) set delegates cheering when he said that teachers had enough numbers and influence to “deliver any seat to any party that comes to the party.” An N.Z.E.I. executive

member, Mr Brown, said that he-was sick of being regarded as a second-class teacher. Children would suffer. unless status was returned to the primary sector, he said. Schools were losing staff because of unfair legislation which denied realistic pay scales based on responsibility and skills.

“We are in a crisis and the future standards of the service, and therefore the quality of education available to children, is at risk,” he said.

Massed meetings, stop- ' work meetings, and other ; industrial action might be i necessary to drive the message to the education . committee, he said. Teachers were sick of being considered second . class, he said. He was sure they would respond to calls for industrial action.