Crunch meetings ahead for school support staff

Thousands of school support staff are currently attending paid union meetings over three weeks (20th October to 6th November) to consider a pay claim to take into crucial collective agreement negotiations next year.

School support staff are the frontline and skilled work force but many are paid as little as $12.69 an hour.

NZEI has been running a fair pay campaign to improve their pay rates, better recognise their skills and highlight problems around the bulk funding of their salaries.

Last month the government promised to provide the additional funding to deliver a “pay jolt” to support staff to drag their pay rates out of the low pay bracket.

“This is crunch time for support staff and we need to bargain that pay jolt into reality,” says NZEI president Frances Nelson.

“We have asked our support staff members to be patient for many years through various working parties and reviews. This time we won’t be prepared to leave the bargaining table without a proper fix which recognises the vital role they play in our schools.”

NZEI is also calling on the education minister to release the Report on Non-Teaching Staff Workforce which addresses some of the issues around the lack of job security for support staff due to the bulk funding of their salaries.

“We want a process to ensure that a funding stream is available to enable principals and school boards to implement the support staff pay rates without compromising other school funding priorities,” says Ms Nelson.