Kia ora e te whānau

This week our thoughts are with our Auckland principal whānau and the continuing challenge to beat Delta. Kia kaha e te whānau o Tāmaki Makaurau. Kia ihi, kia maru.

It is humbling to observe the incredible innovation of our teaching teams and their distance approaches to schooling at level 4 and incorporating hybrid approaches for those at level 3.

Parents and students in our schools are fortunate to be served by such a dedicated and committed workforce. Thank you for being so prepared to pivot, adopting these remote and hybrid approaches, despite the frustrations of operating in this way. Staying positive and holding to official advice is not easy but as leaders in times of crisis, it is critical.

Primary Principals’ Collective Bargaining Union

What an exciting start it has been with 100s of principals joining PPCB over the past 2 days. The website to join is live and Denise and her team anticipate adding many more members over the next week.

It is important to join as quickly as possible as Tom, Hayley, and Denise want to gather your draft claims for the pending Collective Bargaining process. Upon joining, you will be issued with an electronic survey that you will have one week to respond to.

There are some interesting, exciting, and creative claims principals have highlighted:

• The payment of an allowance to compensate for the added responsibility of student wellbeing and behaviour needs.
• The targeted funding of PLD to support the development of principal cultural competency in kaupapa Māori and/or Pasifika.
• The establishment of an agreed pathway and resources for solving employment disputes with Boards of Trustees early in the lifecycle of a dispute and at the lowest level of seriousness.
• Dealing with the significant staffing and resourcing disjuncture between Middle schools covered by the secondary collective and Intermediate schools or Year 7 and 8's in Full Primary schools covered by the primary collective.
• The establishment of an Executive Assistant resource to better support principal wellbeing, deal with the administration mountain, and release principals to lead learning.
• The need to ensure Māori principals have EAP services and/or appraisal/professional growth cycle and/or Board of Trustees problem solving processes that reflect kaupapa Māori.
• Additional significant incentive payment at 5 years for U1-3 principals to encourage retention in small, rural, and isolated communities.
• Establish a higher rate of government contribution to a principal's superannuation savings.
• Review and rebuild the principal salary model to decouple salary from school size, make it fairer to encourage the movement of expertise and experience across schools of different contexts, and introduce contextual weightings to ensure matters such as length of service is recognised.
• A significant pay jolt particularly for U1-3 principals

These are just some of the exciting new claims being explored by PPCB. Having a bespoke voice in bargaining truly enables a breadth of claim that will address a job that has become too vast, too stressful, and too isolating.

The Process of Dual Unions in Collective Bargaining

I want to be clear about the mechanism that SPANZ and PPTA use to effectively be two separate entities who are also bound together as one entity in the Collective Bargaining process. This enables both to function as a single voice facing the Ministry of Education in bargaining. The approach of embracing diversity in having the perspective of two Unions and then front-footing the Ministry with a single joint claim, is powerful. 

The Establishment of a Joint Single Claim

The approach taken by PPTA and SPANZ is for a single joint claim to be presented after PPTA and SPANZ have negotiated the claim together. That single joint claim is then taken into Collective Bargaining with negotiators from PPTA and SPANZ participating but led by a trained professional negotiator who deals directly with the Ministry and does the bargaining.

The Ministry of Education’s approach to joint bargaining is the expectation of a single Collective Agreement outcome. They will not countenance two collective agreements so PPCB and NZEI will need to engage together in a process that reflects the intent of the process our secondary colleagues use.

In essence, there is no other sensible approach but for PPCB and NZEI to work together.

PPCB welcomes this!

Ratification of Claims

Ratification for both Secondary Unions occurs through a Memorandum of Understanding. PPTA and SPANZ agree to seek ratification of the agreed outcome of bargaining from their respective members. Both Unions’ votes are tabulated and counted to establish an outcome across the whole principal community irrespective of which Union they belong to. It is essentially one count.

Here you can once again see a preparedness to put aside partisanship and work together in the best interests of the whole community of principals.

I congratulate SPANZ and PPTA who have evolved these processes to ensure there is a representative model of diversity and collective strength.

It is no small thing to launch a new Union, but I hope the collaborative example of our secondary colleagues gives you a better understanding of the successful design and function of the dual Union model.

Above all and critical to the success of PPCB is a strong membership base. We invite you all to join and back the establishment of exciting and overdue changes and additions to the terms and conditions of your employment. 

Please make it a priority to join up.

www.ppcb.nz

Ngā manaakitanga

Perry Rush
perry@nzpf.ac.nz