Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Leighton Watson: Senior Lecturer of maths and statistics on PPTA members are voting on teacher pay offer

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Leighton Watson: Senior Lecturer of maths and statistics on PPTA members are voting on teacher pay offer · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Do the secondary teachers have a leg to stand on.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: That's the question the union are telling their members they
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: should vote down the government's new payoffer. This is after
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  Speaker 1: the Ministry doubled the previous one two point five percent
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: in the first year two percent in the next Lighton
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Watson Senior Lecture of Mass and Stats at Canterbury Unions
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  Speaker 1: with me this morning, light and good.
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  Speaker 2: Morning, good morning worry, thanks for having me on.
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  Speaker 1: So you don't think this is enough? You've done a
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  Speaker 1: comparison to the minimum wage as a benchmark. What is
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  Speaker 1: the difference?
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  Speaker 2: So teacher salaries have kind of plummeted relative to the
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: minimum wage and I guess, maybe more importantly to the
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  Speaker 2: median wage over the past twenty five years. In nineteen
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  Speaker 2: ninety nine, beginning teachers paid thirty three thousand dollars and
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  Speaker 2: nowadays they're paid sixty four thousand dollars, which seems like
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  Speaker 2: a great increase. But if a beginning teachers paid the
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: same amount now as they were in nineteen ninety nine
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  Speaker 2: relative to the minimum wage, that the earning of one
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars, and if they're paid the same as
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  Speaker 2: they were relative to the median wage, so I could
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  Speaker 2: have kept up with need wage inflation, then they're beginning
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: paid eighty one thousand dollars or got seventeen thousand dollars
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  Speaker 2: more than they can't be paid.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so you reckon they should be getting at least
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  Speaker 1: seventeen grand more than they're currently being paid. Would this
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  Speaker 1: new offer not do that?
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  Speaker 2: This new offer is an increase of two point five
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  Speaker 2: to two point seventy five percent, depending on where they
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  Speaker 2: sit on the salary scale, which equates to about thirteen
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  Speaker 2: hundred or two thousand, five hundred dollars depending off the
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  Speaker 2: bottom of the top of the salary scale. And over
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  Speaker 2: the last twenty five years they decreased relative to the
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  Speaker 2: meeting wage suffered. If teacher salaries had kept out with
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  Speaker 2: the average wage inflation, then they should be earning seventeen
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  Speaker 2: thousand dollars. And I'm not really making a judgment now,
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  Speaker 2: I'm just giving you the numbers that seventeen thousand dollars
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  Speaker 2: is a lot more than thirteen hundred.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, understand So with the minimum wage comparison, has everybody
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: not in everyone who's working right now? Have they not?
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  Speaker 1: Also because the minimum wage is shot up, I mean
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  Speaker 1: we're going up twenty two percent in the last two
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  Speaker 1: in the last three years alone of the labor government.
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  Speaker 1: Has everyone not fallen behind and in relative terms to
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: the minimum wage because it's been ramped up so rapidly.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so all about twenty five years, minimum wagees increased
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  Speaker 2: by a factor of three, whereas teacher salaries have only
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  Speaker 2: increased by a factor of two. But I guess the
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  Speaker 2: difference is the medium wages increased by factor of two
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  Speaker 2: point five. And so that's really that. You know, you
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  Speaker 2: can make arguments about the minimum wage should be higher
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  Speaker 2: than it was of seven dollars twenty five years ago,
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  Speaker 2: and I don't think people are going to argue with that.
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  Speaker 2: But I think there's the difference between teacher salaries in
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  Speaker 2: what the average worker the average wage inflation has been
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  Speaker 2: and teacher salaries have not kept up.
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  Speaker 1: What about other comparable industries.
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  Speaker 2: So with this work looking at teacher salaries, I also
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  Speaker 2: looked at a bunch of kind of healthcare professions and
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  Speaker 2: there's been similar, similar kind of erosion of income across
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  Speaker 2: a range of other healthcare professions as well as education.
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  Speaker 1: It's it's always a state funded organization, state funded industries
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  Speaker 1: that seem to have this problem is that?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and you know, I don't leave the government
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  Speaker 2: from making decisions about where to put their money.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe we should privatize everything. Then that might keep up.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: I think there might be some other issues associated with
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  Speaker 2: some privatization.
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  Speaker 1: Laton, appreciate your time this morning, Layton Watson Senior Lecture
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  Speaker 1: of Mass and Stats, Canterbury Unit.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: For more from early edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live
• 3:25
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• 3:28
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