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School support staff reject Ministry of Education pay offer

Teacher aides and support staff have rejected the latest offer. (File photo) Photo: Unpslash/ Laura Rivera Teacher aides and other school support staff belonging to the Educational Institute have rejected a deal that offers them less than half the pay rise they are seeking. The institute, Te Riu Roa (NZEI), said the offer was the third made by the Ministry of Education It said the offer included a pay rise of 60 cents an hour in the first year followed by 15 cents in the second year and 25 cents in the third year. The union said that amounted to a pay rise of four percent over three years for the lowest-paid support staff and about 1.7 percent for the highest-paid. The NZEI said its members were seeking an increase of five percent in the first year followed by 2.5 percent and 2.5 percent, or a total of 10 percent over three years. The ministry's offer also included lump-sum payments of $300 for full-time staff and $250 for part-time staff in the second and third years of the agreement. NZEI support staff rep and teacher aide Ally Kingi said members were angry and fired-up at meetings but were yet to decide what their next step would be. She said there were 28,000 support staff in schools, not all of whom were union members, and most were women earning less than $30,000 a year. Kingi said support staff won a pay equity boost in 2020 with provision for ongoing reviews to ensure they did not lose ground against male-dominated workforces, but had now lost the ability to have those reviews. She said members were angry about that. "I think it's a feeling of a workforce that's felt under-valued and then through winning our pay equity claims we had that real feeling of our work being seen and valued and felt really great. And then sort of to have sunk back down again, people aren't prepared to do that," she said. "It's hitting all of us in the backpocket... most people work just school hours or part of that time because we know schools aren't funded properly to employ us or to support the children that need supporting." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.