More from NZEI

Exactly what are we  standing up for!

So when you see the reports of teachers and kids out there tomorrow, feel sorry for them – heavied into protesting on a weekend, just to keep the union hierarchy happy.

UPDATE: Eileen Joy and Julie Fairey have both commented below that they are in fact parents and not teachers or NZEI members. Fairey does do some part-time work for NZEI and said:

Eileen Joy is not a teacher. Neither am I (I work two days a week for NZEI Te Riu Roa, amongst other hats I wear). Neither of us have ever been teachers. Eileen is an old university acquaintance of mine (in fact we were on different sides politically back then) who I have recently reconnected with through FB. So you see her query actually makes quite a bit of sense – she is not someone who has previously been involved in this campaign and wanted more information, which I then provided.

As Eileen is not a teacher the children she refers to bringing along (sans apostrophe – I share the laments at the loss of a really very useful piece of punctuation, but am more relaxed about it being used incorrectly in an informal setting) are her own. No attempt whatsoever to bring along children from her class (she doesn’t have one, as she isn’t a teacher, refer previous).

As has been indicated above by other readers, it really doesn’t read as if I’m heavying anyone into attending the march. I’m pretty sure Eileen was there, as was I (unpaid, with one of my children), but there were so many people there I didn’t see her.

I note that the overall national turnout was under 20% of all NZEI members so I think apathy was the big winner on the day 🙂