Categories: News

Should Principals splinter off and form a new union?

A Northland primary school teacher has warned the New Zealand Principals’ Federation (NZPF) to heed the lessons of the past after it proposed the establishment of a breakaway principals’ union.

<p>NZPF president Perry Rush has confirmed that hundreds of primary school principals have voted in favour of leaving NZEI Te Riu Roa&comma; which represents all primary and early childhood educators&comma; to form their own union&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Rush&comma; principal at Hastings Intermediate School&comma; said 850 NZPF members had voted on the proposal last month with 92 percent approving&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The union has urged its members to stay with the NZEI and warned that a new organisation would &&num;8220&semi;chip away&&num;8221&semi; at their collective strength&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Te Tai Tokerau Principals&&num;8217&semi; Association president and NZPF member Pat Newman is also concerned creating a new union will weaken principals&&num;8217&semi; collective voice&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In an open letter to Rush&comma; the Hora Hora Primary School principal said he is worried the organisation is set to repeat past mistakes and that the proposed split would likely worsen outcomes for principals&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;This is not the first time this has happened&comma;” he said&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Last time NZPF experimented like this it divided principals who were forced to choose between competing unions – and NZPF lost around 800 members in the process&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The principals are said to be unhappy with the NZEI over three key issues&colon; the union&&num;8217&semi;s current focus on pay equity for support staff&semi; lack of progress on workload and wellbeing problems&semi; and last year&&num;8217&semi;s collective agreement settlement&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Newman said while many principals may have hoped for better outcomes in their contract negotiations last year&comma; history had shown that a breakaway union wouldn’t have adequate capacity or experience to conduct proper negotiations and advocate on principals’ behalf&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;The end result last time was principals ended up with individual contracts&period; Those negotiated by NZPF were far inferior to those negotiated by NZEI&comma;” he said&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;My message to both organisations is that for the benefit of principals and our profession&comma; they need to sit down and work through the issues and feelings involved and come to agreements&period; In that way we all win&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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David Carroll

David is a senior journalist with more than 25 years experience in Australian media, you can find more of his work in our upcoming print issues of School News magazine.

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