PPTA wants the worst teachers paid $87,000 a year

The Herald reports:

Teacher unions are warning of likely strikes to seek pay rises costing “hundreds of millions of dollars”, including an extra allowance for teaching in areas of expensive housing such as Auckland.

Primary and early childhood teachers in the NZ Educational Institute (NZEI) have voted in Rotorua this morning to hold paid union meetings in the first term of next year to finalise claims for what executive member Liam Rutherford described as a “seismic shift” in pay rates when their current agreements expire next May and June.

Secondary teachers in the Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) are also expected to vote in Wellington this afternoon to hold paid union meetings in the first term and to prepare financially for industrial action when their agreement expires next October.

A background paper for PPTA delegates says the top of the basic pay scale needs to jump by 14.5 per cent, from $75,949 to $86,967, to restore top teachers to the same relativity of 81 per cent above the median income of all wage and salary earners that they achieved after their last big pay rise in 2001-02.

The worst teachers in New Zealand get paid the same as the best teachers so the PPTA is saying that the worst teachers should get $87,000 a year, as well as the best.

I say that the best teachers should get $120,000 a year but the worst teachers say just $60,000.