Categories: News

No more strikes for secondary schools as arbitration kicks off

Strike action has been suspended as an arbitration process begins between the Ministry of Education and PPTA Te Wehengarua.

<h2>PPTA Te Wehengarua have called off all upcoming strike action in an agreement with the Ministry of Education as the two parties head into an arbitration process&period; </h2>&NewLine;<a href="https&colon;//www&period;schoolnews&period;co&period;nz/latest-print-issue/" target="&lowbar;blank" rel="noopener">Read the Term 2 edition of School News HERE</a>&NewLine;The arbitration will include a three-person panel who are deemed to be impartial and removed from the situation, so they can consider both parties’ wants and needs to come to an agreement&period; The members of the panel are expected to be announced in the coming days, and the entire process is expected to take four to six weeks to be completed&period; &NewLine;The PPTA executive voted to approve the arbitration process on Wednesday 21 June, and strike action was suspended the same day&period; However, paid union meetings scheduled this week will still happen, their purpose being to discuss the process and moving to individual employment agreements for all members from 1 July&period; &NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We hope an independent arbitration panel will review the matters under dispute fairly and objectively and provide recommendations that would form the basis of a new collective agreement,” said Chris Abercrombie, acting president at PPTA Te Wehengarua&period; &NewLine;<blockquote>&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We have agreed to immediately withdraw strike action as a gesture of our commitment to this process&&num;8230&semi; We really hope this process will allow teachers to return to a settled environment for the long term and that it will produce a fair and reasonable outcome for PPTA members&period;” &NewLine;</blockquote>&NewLine;Vaughan Couillaut, president of Secondary Principals Association said he hoped this would mean business as usual for schools&period; &NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We all know over the last few years things have been continually disrupted and so the sooner we can put that disruption to bed, the better&period;” &NewLine;The announcement comes after a group of high school students wrote a letter to Education Minister Jan Tinetti, calling for the strikes to stop&period; The group included dozens of high school students from the Waikato region&period; The letter read&colon; &NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;On behalf of all rangatahi (young people), we want to say that enough is enough&&num;8230&semi; while you battle over pay and conditions, students across the country are being sent home&period; &NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Yet again our learning – despite all the rhetoric to the opposite – is happily being used as a pawn for political and union conflicts&period;” &NewLine;The letter was followed by an online petition, which garnered 1751 signatures as of Thursday 22 June&period; &NewLine;

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Naomii Seah

Naomii Seah is a writer and journalist from Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. She has been covering education in New Zealand since 2022.