Pay action will not move Govt, says Mr Rodger

Press, 19 February 1986, Page 8

Pay action will not move Govt, says Mr Rodger

By

PATRICIA HERBERT

in Wellington

Secondary school teachers were warned yesterday by the Minister of State Services, Mr Rodger, that no amount of direct action would persuade the Government to increase its pay offer. Wellington teachers protested in the grounds of Parliament yesterday. Mr Rodger said: “The only consequence of direct action will be to bring joy to the hearts of pupils because they will be sent home, to cause annoyance to parents, and to bring relief to the Minister of Finance because we will be saving pay for

tire time they are off.” Protest marches, while they might provide good physical exercise, would achieve nothing else, Mr Rodger said.

The top basic grade teacher had been offered about 25 per cent and senior grades more, he said. This was against a private sector wage round running between 12.5 and 22 per cent, with the majority settling at 15.5.

Teachers had two choices: Either they accepted the offer or they took their claim to the Public Service Tribunal for decision.

The P.P.T.A. is basing its demand for a higher increase on recruitment

and retention arguments. Mr Rodger replied to those yesterday.

He said the Government had increased the number of teachers by 405 in the last Budget and so there were probably more about now than when the association’s claim was first lodged. The shortage in the teaching service was “actually quite minimal in a skills scarce society” and the offer was, in his view, sufficiently generous to pick up the extra staff needed were they available.

That availability, he suggested, was subject to doubt, particularly in disciplines such as mathema-

tics and physics in the face of competing pressure from private enterprise.

Mr Rodger said there was a scarcity of about 270 teachers in a workforce of 15,000 — “the sort of recruitment problem that any major employer in New Zealand would love to have.”

The assistant general secretary of the P.P.T.A., Mr Kevin Bunker,, said, however, that Mr Rodger’s figures represented only the number of advertised vacancies and that the association’s survey, including positions vacant and not advertised or soon to be vacant, showed 350 short.