Kerre Woodham: Is the primary teachers' union causing friction?

For nine months now, the Public Service Commission has been negotiating with the primary school teachers union over pay and conditions. Every other union in the education sector has settled, but not the NZEI Te Riu Roa. There have been strikes, there have been rejected pay offers, in some cases offers haven't even been presented to union members to vote on, and there have been accusations of bad faith from both sides. In interviews, the Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche has sounded increasingly grumpy and frustrated, and when he spoke to Mike Hosking last week, he said that he was exploring options, looking for a way to offer non-union teachers, about a third of the primary teacher workforce, a pay increase so they didn't have to wait for the union to find an offer acceptable. And now he has, as he explained to Heather du Plessis Allan last night. 

BR: There are 10,000 non-unionised teachers who have been deprived of a settlement. In the normal course of events, we would have kept going with the NZEI, and we are still keeping going with them, but I got to the point where I could no longer justify withholding an offer. So they, the non-union members, have the option now of accepting or not accepting. I don't think it impacts at all on our good faith bargaining and our strong commitment to reach a settlement with NZEI. 

HDPA: Is it lawful? 

BR: Of course, but it is risky and that's playing out now. But this is a question of equity. Why would somebody who's not in the union be deprived of being able to benefit from something? They're under no obligation to accept it, I fully respect that, but 10,000 people where I can make their lives better and get greater stability is worth doing. 

So that was what Sir Brian Roche was doing, looking at the legality of it, whether they could do it. He's found a way that they can, and he says it's risky because he fears the unions will kick off. They'll go hardline, they'll take the strikes and go all sort of waterfront union on it. The union says it will cause a division, but as Education Minister Erica Stanford told Mike Hosking this morning, she thinks it's fair and reasonable that nearly a third of primary school teachers who are not part of the union should be offered a contract now so that they can receive the pay increases now that the government has already offered. 

ES: I know that the unions, of course they're not happy with it, and they're trying to say, look, it's causing division. But I would say there's already division. A third of their workforce are not in a union, you know, and if they seriously think it's about division, they should ask themselves why a third of the workforce don't want anything to do with them. 

Interesting. This will equate to approximately 50 to 76 bucks every week, which is not inconsiderable. And it's pay that teachers could be receiving already, were they not impacted by the ongoing holdout from the union. They would say that it's the Government's failure to meet their perfectly reasonable demands, so there'll be stories from both sides. But good on the Public Service Commission. I mean, if unions want to keep going because they believe they can get a better deal for their union members, that's what their members pay their dues for, that they want to get the best possible conditions for their members, fine, fill your boots, keep going. But if I was a non-union teacher, I'd be getting more and more brassed off.  

It's not just the parents and young people too who are fed up with the ongoing negotiations and ongoing industrial action. Plenty of teachers are too, if the text traffic is anything to go by. A number of teachers told me they were only in the union for the legal protection it afforded them. They certainly didn't agree with the hardline stance being taken by negotiators. Will it cause friction? More friction than there already is in the staffroom when you have some teachers earning more while others are having to wait for their union to settle? I mean, when we were talking about the waterfront workers’ strike lockout depending on which side you're on, there were people who would cross the street to avoid scabs, you know, in Huntly or Otahuhu and different parts of the country. Those old resentments lingered and lingered and lingered.  

Surely we're beyond that now. You shouldn't have to join a union to be able to negotiate fair pay and conditions, and I wouldn't have thought teachers particularly would need one. They know their worth, they're articulate. Why would you need a union per se? I bet, as a number of them said, they're only there for the legal protection. If there was a way of insuring yourself privately for a reasonable fee against malicious lawsuits, then perhaps there'd be no need for the union at all. How many of you belong to unions and why? Do you see the benefit it brings you? How many of you would like to be in a union and how many of you are perfectly confident that you can negotiate the best pay and conditions for you?  

I'd be really interested to hear from those of you who benefit from union membership and whether you think in this particular case there is going to be friction. I don't think, like if the NZEI can negotiate better conditions for their members, I don't think the non-union staff should get that. Like if you get non-contact time, whatever it is you're holding out on, you know, the non-union members shouldn't necessarily get that. You didn't want to join the union, you wanted to accept the pay offer, that's what you were concerned about, fine, fill your boots, you go for it. But if the union members say no, it's about the conditions, not the pay, and they get better conditions, I don't necessarily think that the non-union members should get it. 

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