Support staff are a diverse group of workers numbering more than 20,000 who play pivotal roles in schools and centres.
The “Stronger Together for Fair Pay” campaign aims to not only improve support staff pay rates, but also ensure schools have the additional funding to cover the costs and highlight the issues around underfunding and low pay. It’s a critical campaign which will not only benefit support staff, but schools as well.
Co-incidentally there are signs that the Government may shortly settle the collective agreement for school cleaners and caretakers. It is understood it will raise their minimum rate from 12.00 an hour to $14.62 an hour.
Above: The Support Staff Work Programme team Monique Jansonius, Sue Nimmo and Gaye Parlane: support staff are tired of reviews and want wage justice now.
NZEI congratulates the Service and Food Workers Union for their cleaners and caretakers campaign so far, but believes that a government that is committed to addressing low pay should fix the situation for all school workers.
The recent national Support Staff conference provided the perfect opportunity to officially launch the “Stronger Together for Fair Pay” campaign. More than 200 NZEI support staff members attended the three-day conference at Rotorua’s Millennium Hotel. They enjoyed a packed programme of workshops, presentations and discussions, from where the “Stronger Together for Fair Pay” message rang out loud and clear.
NZEI has been lobbying for six years to address some of the issues facing support staff and NZEI National President Frances Nelson told the conference “it’s time for the invisible army of education workers to become a very visible army of support for the campaign”.
NZEI National Secretary Paul Goulter also made a call for action, and outlined the goals of what he described as a political and community-based campaign. Support staff have waited too long and are tired of government promises to address the issues through ongoing reviews and working parties. Members are “reviewed out”, he said.
Local Rotorua MP and Women’s Affairs Minister Steve Chadwick addressed the meeting. She freely admitted that education wasn’t her area, but that she was eager to understand the issues and hear from support staff first hand.
She said that investing in the education workforce was a priority for Labour and pay and employment equity reviews would give the government a fuller picture of support staff salaries and conditions.
“The legacy of low pay is taking a while for us to sort out but we want to work in partnership to find a resolution,” she said. Steve Chadwick hinted that centralised funding for support staff was being looked at and appeared to be sympathetic to members’ concerns that there is no tagged funding for support staff within the School Operations Grant.
In finishing her address, she told the audience that she would return to Wellington much wiser about the situation facing support staff and promised to take a strong message back to the Minister and her Cabinet colleagues.
Steve Chadwick also engaged with the National Party education spokesperson Anne Tolley during a lively political forum chaired by CTU President Helen Kelly. Bay of Plenty Green Party candidate Jon Sadler also took part.
The three politicians were quizzed on a variety of topics from operational grant funding to employment relations. Anne Tolley acknowledged the diversity of support staff and their value to the community. She repeated that National firmly believes there is enough money in the system and there will be no additional operational funding. In terms of funding core support staff roles centrally, rather than through operational funding, she said the party was still looking into that.
In the lead up to the conference, there had already been some campaign groundwork. Members around the country had been flooding the Minister of Finance Michael Cullen’s offices with faxes and emails demanding action from the Government. One Hamilton school sent over 62 letters, while NZEI members at a Napier school went one step further and personally filled Dr Cullen’s home letterbox with letters. A Nelson member went straight to the top, cornering the Prime Minister Helen Clark at a CTU forum recently, giving her a copy of all the support staff issues and asking her to promise to read them.
<< less
