Cabinet decision undermines all negotiations —union

Press, 20 February 1986, Page 3

Cabinet decision undermines all negotiations —union

The chairman of the Combined State Unions, Mr Colin Hicks, says he is concerned about the implications of the postprimary teachers’ pay dispute. Mr Hicks said he was “very concerned” about the Cabinet decision to reject a settlement agreed to by the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association and two Ministers. "The P.P.T.A. negotiated a settlement with the employer. The employer then welshed on the deal,” Mr Hicks said. “Where does that leave us? I suggest such behaviour dangerously undermines the status of all negotiations between State unions and Government reoresentatives.”

The Minister of State Services, Mr Rodger, said the Cabinet had never agreed to any settlement, and therefore had not gone back on any deal. The Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas, said yesterday that the P.P.T.A. was grossly misleading parents, teachers, and the public over the dispute. The average secondary teacher needed an extra 21 per cent ($lOO a week) to keep pace with other State sector pay increases, Mr Douglas said. “Beyond that it is agreed that they deserve more, to the extent that high schools have some special problem in recruiting and retaining staff,” he said. ■f “So we have said, ‘On top of the $lOO needed to equate you with the rest of the State sector, we are happy to add roughly another $3O a week to improve recruitment and retention.’ That would take teachers to 26 per cent

compared with an average of 15.5 per cent for the private sector and State tradesmen ... and 21 per cent on average for other State employees,” Mr Douglas said.

The Opposition spokesman on education, Miss Ruth Richardson, said the Government had created high settlement expectations and could not reverse that trend now that it realised such settlements were financially embarrassing. It was not good enough to say the Government had realised its mistake and was now drawing the line, she said. “A Government must first of all be consistent in its policy strategy. There is no consistency in the Government’s position. The Government is going to find that having set out on this path it is going to be held to the path,” she said.

Miss Richardson said the teachers’ anger was justified, but she warned them not to penalise their pupils for the Government’s handling of the dispute. “Set out on a collision course with the Government, but do not embark on a collision course with your pupils.”

Miss Richardson said

teachers faced a real dilemma. They had played by the rules and had lost all faith in the Govern- . ment. “The most productive way (to handle the dispute), and the right that any interest group has in a democracy, is to punish the Government politically for its betrayal. “I invite the teachers to flex their political muscles, rather than their industrial ones at the expense of their pupils, and to play an active part in bringing the Government to its economic senses,” Miss Richardson said. The president of the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association, Mr Peter Allen, said Mr Rodger had shown he was out of his depth. “The Minister has disguised the fact that he has failed to put a teacher in front of every secondary class,” Mr Allen said. “The number of students determines the need for teachers. We are 350 teachers short of that need. It is now for the. Minister to announce, which students will not be taught,” he said. The P.P.T.A. national executive will meet in Wellington tomorrow to discuss possible industrial action.