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Teachers vote for illegal strike

by Whaleoil on December 6, 2012

Once again the teacher unions have implored their members to break the law. The really bizarre thing is the teachers were voting to strike before they had even heard any proposals.

Over 1000 teachers and administration staff from throughout the greater Christchurch region attended a meeting in Addington yesterday to consider strike action in protest at the proposed overhaul of the region’s schools.

Members of the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) yesterday voted overwhelming to strike on February 19, the day after Education Minister Hekia Parata delivers her final decisions about closures and mergers of affected schools.

The NZEI called the meeting because of its concerns over the Government’s decision to close or merge 39 schools.

Of the 846 who voted, 520 wanted strike action in February, with only 143 voting against industrial action altogether.

After the vote, NZEI president Ian Leckie told The Press the Government’s plans “aren’t acceptable”.

Ian Leckie hasn;t even heard about the plans, so he is really pre-determining the view of the union and its members. However their vote appears to be illegal.

Personally, I’d can’t think of anything better than watching a union get its beans and cop fines…

A teachers’ strike against the Government’s proposed education shake-up in Christchurch is unlikely to go ahead, says a law specialist.

Geoff Bevan, a lawyer specialising in employment law, told Radio New Zealand this morning it was likely the Education Ministry of Education would go to the Employment Court and seek an injunction to prevent the strike.

He believed it would be granted.

Bevan said if the teachers did strike they could be held liable for any losses.

“When you strike you’re breaking an employment contract. If you’re employer breaks a contract they’re liable to pay for the loss they caused their employer. The union can also be liable for the loss.”

However he did not think the ministry would pursue that path.

“Suing teachers or firing them isn’t going to solve the situation in Christchurch.

“The most likely consequence is that the ministry will go to the Employment Court and seek an injunction stopping the strike,” he said.

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  • Phar Lap

    Christchurch ,more moaning,nuff said.

    • Mike D

      You my friend are a complete muppet….

      I am not one to agree with teachers and their union but I dit agree with the Owl above.

      Let me see…. Mr F-lap have you ever been to Christchurch??

      • Bunswalla

        Yeah, I used to live there. Cunt of a place, and that was before the earthquake. The People’s Republic of Christchurch; the Village of the Damned as Miles Davis so eloquently and accurately called it.

  • Macca

    I’m sick to death of these moaning teachers who have no idea what life is like in the real world! The bitch and moan about their pay being late etc, they should see what it feels like to be a sub-contractor and either have to wait 3-4 months to get paid or NOT get paid at all!

    When a government is democratically elected, if you don’t like them – tough! In three years time you get to vote for the one you want, in the mean time, harden the fuck up and get on with it – its called life! I’d sack the fucken lot of them!

    • greybeard

      You, Macca, are a dickhead. You have no idea what a teacher’s life is like: my daughter got a degree at Victoria then decided to be a teacher. She did the 12-month post-grad course. Four years on, her life is fantastically rewarding but very time-consuming. Early starts to set up classes, handle 31 kids all day for a variety of subjects ( and 31 kids are very demanding, as some of them are special-needs, some are precocious, some are damaged, some are out of their depth , etc ). After school and during the school ‘holidays’ are meetings, extra-curricular activities, setting lessons for next day/week/year, marking papers, a whole raft of things to do, while a lot of her friends are out enjoying themselves. Then there are the parents: this is probably the bit that few teachers mention. She has to be a substitute for parents who couldn’t care less, she has to deal with kids who come from broken homes, she has to deal with kids who come to school with no lunch, the girls who come to school and have their first period, the kids who have no support at home for their homework, who have no books at home and whose parents have never ever read to them, who come from families who cannot afford to pay for trips or the all-too-many ‘extras’ and feel inferior. She is abused by parents at parent-teacher meetings and over the phone, she has to tread a very fine line in handing kids and parents in case someone complains about something.
      I am immensely proud of her. She is however not a tool of the union, she is a thinking, caring and very capable person who makes a difference to peoples’ lives.

      • owl

        Grey beard I am with you…I like teachers a lot…I just think their executive are career left wing politicians…so teachers get my big thumbs up…it’s HQ I have issues with. However let’s look at some numbers.
        846 voted…520 said yes and 143 said NO. That equals 663. So actually 326 said no. That is 38% who are happy with the governments decision.

        Interestingly that is a bigger % age of the schools that are going to effected. So roughly 40% say the government is bang on…40% of election night votes can get you into government here in NZ.

        This is not a mandate for the teachers but a resounding thumbs up for the government. 40% of teachers in chch think the schooling system needs a complete shake up. Converted to voting population that is more than needed for a referendum in NZ.

        Maybe the executive union should listen to all their members.
        S

        • Bunswalla

          Owl I know you are a seeker of truth. I believe there were 3 options voted on:

          1. Strike in December (183 votes)

          2. Strike in February next year (520)

          3. Don’t strike.(143)

          Total = 846

          • owl

            Cheers I was doing some thoughts on this. 183 want to strike now! Hard left …therefore vote to strike about baptizing flys in lunchrooms. 143 16% still enough for a referendum. So….how many didn’t turn up?

            I agree a majority though what really surprises me is that 143 educated people..with degrees and high ability to think for themselves think the government is right.

            If it was so important why wait to February. The more I look at this the more the executive have created a flawed process. I have agreed before the government haven’t been perfect on chch…much is wrong about this vote. 143 people in the same environment said no. I need to know how many were eligible to vote.

            Something wrong…it will bother me all night

      • Gazzaw

        Greybeard, I am with you 100% – the only difference is that my daughter has done one more year than yours. She is not a union member & never will be. There are far too many teacher haters here when their target should be the unions, the totally dysfunctional Dept and the inept Minister. Our daughter loves her job, her children and was born to teach. She has her ‘long holiday’ sorted out already – she will work the full first week and the last ten days giving her a total of four weeks including the stat days. After three years doing a real degree at a real university plus a years post-grad she earns $58k pa. She teaches younger kids than your daughter – new entry level, so count cleaning up shit off the classroom floor as part of normal duties. And as your daughter has found out homes with no books & no support for homework. High decile schools have the same problems.

        I just get totally fucked off with the continual teacher sniping here. By all means go all out for the unions but the type of shit that gets flung about here at times is just what deters young grads from choosing teaching as a profession.

        • BW_Lord

          I’m sorry Gazzaw, but its readily seen in this very example that the teachers themselves have to take some of the flack. A large percentage have just voted for an illegal strike before the details of the proposal have even been released. I have no doubt that they have been led down the garden path by their supposed ‘unions’, but you can’t blame people on here for being frustrated with these embedded socialists.

          • Gazzaw

            Read my post properly BW.

            Maybe you should sign up for remedial reading.

      • Macca

        Greybeard, I don’t doubt for a minute that your daughter is a good teacher and yes you should be proud of her. I am not a teacher but my late father was a top teacher for over 35 years, was head of department in two of New Zealands top secondary schools and was instrumental in the introduction of social studies and audio visual aids in to schools. I also have three sisters who are fully qualified teachers and although not a teacher myself, I spent over six years in the regular army, much of which was as an instructor!
        Regarding your daughter and any other teacher out there who thinks there job is too hard, I don’t see anyone holding a shotgun to their heads to make them keep doing it!
        So before you accuse me of being a dickhead, I suggest you re-read my original message! I am sick to fucken death of left leaning TEACHERS (admittedly, not all), continually bitching about their lot and coming up with nothing but negativity for any ideas or policy that the current government releases! I am also sick of the socialist propaganda they are feeding our children and the way they act in public is a fucken disgrace! Point in question was that meeting Tolley went to the other year and they all held up signs – how fucken childish is that – and they are teaching our next generation!
        You may be proud of your daughter and it sounds like she is one out of the box but all I see on TV is a whole bunch of whiners who yes – should be given the sack, we and the future would certainly be better for it!

    • Teachersrock

      Ahhh the “real world” bullshit argument.

  • Allyson

    Feelin sad for good family folk of this city. Just one more kick in the guts. This time from the teachers

    • Teachersrock

      Teachers are standing up for the kids and those parents. The MoE want to use incorrect information to peruse their ideologically driven agenda.

      As was stated on Tv One this morning, teachers know there has to be change in Christchurch, they just want it based on the truth and for the MoE to actually listen to the community and its real needs.

      • Mr Sackunkrak

        Teacher’s cock, no they are not. All they seek to do is stir a bit of shit to protect their patch, bet ya there is a pay demand in there too. Selfish cunts.

        • Teachersrock

          Oh dear, I see you are 100% ignorant.

          The strike as NOTHING to do with the current negations, it has to do with school mergers and closures in Christchurch. If you are going to attack teachers at least get the facts right.

          • http://www.whaleoil.co.nz Whaleoil

            You can’t strike over that you numpty. You can only strike over contract negotiations.

          • Teachersrock

            And yet that is what the strike is about.

          • Mr Sackunkrak

            Strike over the moon fucking up the tides, same thing. Fucking teacher unions. Useless, and we pay these people to molest our children’s minds.

          • Teachersrock

            Wow, you really are a nasty little know nothing troll.

          • http://www.whaleoil.co.nz Whaleoil

            See how you get on trying that.

          • Mr Sackunkrak

            Fuck off loser, this dispute has everything to do with school location, but only because the useless teachers don’t want to commute like everyone else. Go suck the head off, cock.

          • Teachersrock

            I see you are just another clues right wing hater who thinks they know more than those in the job.

            Go soak your head dumbarse.

          • Mr Sackunkrak

            Err, ok, so long as you promise not to be a teacher of my children, I don’t want your sick mind mollesting their’s. cheers.

        • amy

          you are half right. heard a teacher from chch talking the other night about the pay offer put on the table last week (something like 1% for next couple of years and 5% in 2015, im sure someone can confirm or correct this) saying how crap it was. it was no surprise to me to see that this week they are on strike, no doubt with this as some sort of motive

          • Mr Sackunkrak

            Yeah and some in the real world have taken inflationary pay cuts for three years running just to keep the company running. Why should I care about teachers with their pay demands and 12 weeks holidays to boot? I fucking pay their wages out of my empty pockets. Fucking ingrate cunts.

          • Mr Sackunkrak

            There you go, they are getting pay offers for their easy lifestyle jobs and yet some of us have sucked in three years of inflationary pay cuts, but have paid tax to keep these cunts housed and fed, now they want more!

          • Teachersrock

            Good lord you are thick.

      • Bunswalla

        Is this reverse day? Substitute “Teachers” for “The MoE” in that first statement and you are 100% correct!

      • Allyson

        Teachers Unions standing up for parents and their children. I’m still chuckling at that one.

  • Mr Sackunkrak

    “Suing teachers or firing them isn’t going to solve the situation in Christchurch.”

    No, but it sure would make their union leaches shit themselves, and that would be worth the collateral damage.

    • http://www.whaleoil.co.nz Whaleoil

      Worked well for Scott walker and Chris Christie

      • Mr Sackunkrak

        Yeah I know, I’d help finance more of the same. Long overdue is the notion of “shit happens” and no one is round to take care of your burst socialist nappy. NZ needs to harden up and just say ” fuck off loser, the rest of us ain’t paying, now seriously fuck off, see my big gun.”

  • http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/ Petal

    I sat down with a couple of teachers earlier this week and asked some questions. Both had been relieving for a few years so been through a number of schools. To cut a long story short

    - Most schools aren’t gung-ho about unions
    - Where a school is pro-union, it frequently comes from the Principal
    - Where a school is pro-union, the principal is obviously left-wing
    - If you’re non-union in a union school, you don’t get included/are shunned
    - If you’re non-union in a normal school life is normal
    - Non members aren’t shunned in non-militant schools
    - Union meetings are seen as a drag
    - Union meetings during class time are seen as irresponsible
    - Most teachers see the union burden as an interruption
    - Non unionised staff are offered/paid exactly same as unionised staff
    - People who don’t want to strike frequently help out in other ways to get paid
    - Calls for a union rep results in all the heads going down (don’t ask me)
    - Being a rep is a curse – endless announcements, paperwork, meetings
    - Most announcements political not education centric

    About the dues, “you get nothing in return, a complete waste of money”.

    Most teachers are hard working, capable and dedicated to the job. They hate getting lumped in with the vocal left wing activist crowd that speak as if they have a clear mandate. However, as it is with most of these things, the union provides enough of a barrier of fear for people to keep paying and stay in line.

    Unions such as these are as much bullies to their membership as they are to anyone else they deem fit to target.

    But there’s absolutely nothing new about that.

    It’s just that an awful lot of teachers wish they weren’t spoken of as some sort of homoganous group with a single mind.

    • Mr Sackunkrak

      You have just summarised Seven Periods With Mr Gormsby! It’s a local documentary that ought to be compulsory viewing.

    • Orange

      I haven’t seen any of the union putting up a “barrier of fear” for people. That line was funny. The rest of it rings true to those I speak to as well, and in the turnout to meetings.

      And, grats on MOD status! All the best.

  • Teachersrock

    Goodness what a rather cynical and nasty spin of facts you have got going there Whale. The MoE and Minster have used flawed data and ideology to attack education in Christchurch go against the wishes of teachers and parents, and yet who do you and your pathetic kind go after – the teachers fighting for kids.

    How unsurprising.

    Go the teachers of Christchurch!! And Minster open your ears, listen and do the RIGHT THING for education in Christchurch. Admit you screwed up big time and start again.

    • Bunswalla

      Who pays the fucking bills, dickhead? The Government pays for schools, for teachers and for the kids to go (yes I have teenagers and I know how much “extra” we have to pay but that’s not the point – if the Government didn’t pay for the schools and teachers in the first place we’d be paying a lot more, so shut the fuck up and listen).
      SO…
      1. if you don’t like the Government then vote them out in 2014, OK?
      2. If you don’t like working for the MoE then fuck off and find a job working for someone you do like, OK?
      3. In the meantime, could you please shut the fuck up and get on with doing the job you’re paid to do?
      Thank you so much.

      • Teachersrock

        The Government is using incorrect information and is not putting the needs of the children first.

        I don’t know what country you live in, but in NZ if the Government does something that is flawed or bad for the public, kiwis speak up and tell it to pull its head in.

        So how about you shut the fuck up and go back to whatever dictatorship you can from.

        • SJ00

          Whats the correct information?

          That dickhead Ian Leckie was TV this morning saying they need to stop and start again. Basically saying, stop what you think is right and once you come up with what we think is right, we will support it.

          You idiots realize the MoE is run by ex teachers right? Its your own that are coming up with these ideas.

          • Teachersrock

            There are next to no teachers in the MoE.

          • Mr Sackunkrak

            And your point is?

          • Teachersrock

            Having not measured the lengths of the blokes cocks and the MoE I’ll have to take your word for that, but the point is there is no one there who actually knows how kids learn, or gives a rats arse for that matter about anything other than pushing paper.

          • SJ00

            Hate to burst your bubble but the place is full of them. I worked in the IT department there for a few years and so many of the staff were ex teachers. Corrections is the same (ex officers) and I suspect Police etc would be similar (this is head offices we are talking about). ACC has people with brain injuries working there (jokes).

            But, what is the correct information you mentioned earlier?

    • In Vino Veritas

      Teachersrock, it is interesting that you say that teachers are fighting for kids. Tell me how exactly, that the closure of one school and the amalgamation of that school with another will affect the learning of the children from the closed school. Unless of course, you are saying that the teachers in one school are better than the other?

  • GregM

    I need more information on this one, at this stage I’m backing the teachers. I am starting to think that maybe the left dominated Ministry is deliberately trying to nobble the government.

    Have a look at this lot and have a think about it:

    http://www.minedu.govt.nz/theMinistry/AboutUs/LeadershipTeam/LeadershipTeam.aspx

    • Teachersrock

      Actually the problem with the MoE is that almost none of them have any actual teaching experience. They are bureaucrats with no understanding what so ever of how kids learn, or what teaching in the 21st century actually looks like.

      Ministers might make smarter moves if they had a Ministry that knew the first thing about kids and learning.

      • GregM

        Yes I agree, it also appears they are all appointees from other government departments. I wonder how many of them have sat down with a class of new entrants and given the kids the spark to learn like my first teacher way back in 1969 did.

        • Teachersrock

          At a guess… none.

      • In Vino Veritas

        Sort of like a whole swathe of Labour Party MP’s who have no experience in anything other than politics, Green activism andor Unionism. Yet they purport to be able to run a country.

  • Gazzaw

    Thank God, at long last there seems to be some intelligent debate going on about education.

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