Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: The pressure's on for the primary teachers' union

I think we can quite accurately use the word 'brilliant' to describe the latest move from the Government’s man in the primary teachers’ pay negotiations.

Brian Roche, the Public Service Commissioner, has gone around the union and offered a 4.7 percent pay increase to primary teachers who are not in the union. If they agree to it, the first chunk of the pay rise will kick in 19 days from now and the next chunk will take effect in January next year.

This is clever because it undermines the union - which still hasn’t settled, has it?

For the past nine months, they’ve refused to finalise their pay agreement until the Treaty is recognised in teachers’ contracts and until the Government pays teachers more for their overnight camp allowance, for God’s sake.

Based on the text traffic we get to this show, there must be huge numbers of teachers growing increasingly frustrated with their union for getting hung up on ideology over pay, while they lose up to $76 a week in income they’re not receiving because negotiations are still dragging on.

So the pressure is now on the NZEI big time. Feasibly, union members can now do what 10,000 of their colleagues have already done: either avoid joining the union or leave it altogether and get their pay rise faster without the union than with it.

Personally, I love that this is happening. It became obvious to me 20 years ago, as a junior reporter at TVNZ, that unions weren’t much use to me even then. And what’s happened since is much worse because unions are now actively holding up pay negotiations for really stupid reasons.

So - brilliant move from the Public Service Commissioner. I can’t wait to see whether this forces the union to finally wrap up the pay talks to save themselves from an exodus of clever teachers.

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