Waikato teachers say action is needed or industry will lose more teachers

Lorraine Guzzo has been a teacher for 20 years.

It’s a job she loves but pay, and working conditions have caught teachers like her between a rock and a hard place.

Her biggest fear is more teachers will quit if the education system doesn’t change.

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“I love being around children and I love being in a classroom,” Guzzo said.

“It’s heartbreaking…I think we’ll have more teachers leaving the profession and that’s what I’m really scared about because we need more teachers, and we’re not getting them, I mean why would you come to this profession knowing this work-load.”

50,000 kindergarten, primary and secondary school teachers and principals are set to join the industrial action on Thursday, March 16, with rallies and demonstrations planned in towns and cities across New Zealand.

Last ditch talks to avert Thursday’s primary teachers’ strike were held on Tuesday.

The strikes have been organised by unions the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) and New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa, which have a combined membership of around 66,000.

The Government has been in negotiations with the unions since May 2022 with two offers by the ministry of education being rejected by teachers.

New primary teachers could receive an 11.7% rise over two years in the Government’s latest pay offer, while the highest paid primary teachers would get 7.6%.

After an initial offer was rejected, a second offer from the Government to primary teachers included a $4000 increase to salaries from December 2022, and a further 3% or $2000 (the higher figure) to salaries from December this year.

There would also be a one-off $750 for NZEI union members and another $500 for all teachers on December 1, both pro-rata. There would be an increase to release time for teachers.

NZEI President, Mark Potter said the pay offer needed to keep up with CPI (Consumer Price Index).

”For many years we’ve been raising these issues and asking for things to be taken into account…we’ve now got a crisis in education, we don’t have people lining up,” Potter said.

”The main purpose of the strike is to really draw the Government’s attention to how important it is that we need to them to come to the party.”

Teachers are stretched to their limit Guzzo said.

She has colleagues who have had to seek help from counselling services to cope and others were burning out.

Typical classroom sizes were 30 plus children and with so many needing extra support on top of school duties, extracurricular activities and after-school commitments.

What teachers wanted was for the Government to “actually invest in our education system” from staffing, to resources to ensuring educators were being paid what they were worth.

“We’ve given an offer but it nowhere near meets the cost of living, and so I’ve got colleagues now that are absolutely struggling, and it’s not just teachers, it’s everywhere.”

“We’re not asking these claims for us, we’re asking these claims for the tamariki in our country because they deserve more, and I can’t believe how under-valued the Government believes we are because we work so hard.”

For Waihi East School Principal, Briar Scott “it’s the personal cost” that has motivated her choice to strike.

She said principals were “not just principals”, they were the caretaker, the spare teacher, the nanny and a counsellor at times.

“Principals have been asking for the same things, this is our third campaign with the same story…I’m super concerned for our principals…the burn-out rate is exponential like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

Hamilton’s teachers and staff will be on strike between 11:30am and 12:30pm at Garden place, Hamilton central.