Speech to PPTA Conference 2009
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa
Ko Julia ahau
No Taranaki ahau
Ko Ralph & Marie tohu matua
Ko Hamish toku noa tane
Ko Sarah taku teina
Tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa
It is my pleasure to address the PPTA conference. I do so with some trepidation as I recall some of the people who have held the position of SPC Chair before me – Karen Sewell, Graeme Marshall, Bruce Murray, Janice Campbell, Arthur Graves and most recently Graeme Macann. I honour them and the work they put into this organisation as I speak to you today.
I am taking over as SPC Chair at a time of potentially significant change for Principals in NZ. For the first time there is a new union in town and we are each vying for membership as the contract negotiations loom. Principals have to make a decision – which contract will I end up signing, so effectively who will be my bargaining agent and to whom will I pay union fees?
For me this is a purely rhetorical question but I think it’s important to explain why that is – because I believe it strikes at the very heart of the debate and it’s a debate schools might like to have with their Principals – simply by asking which union are you joining?
I joined PPTA as soon as I could. I was going to be a teacher, and secondary teachers were looked after by the PPTA. I had some pretty strong role models to guide me in this – my parents were both teachers who belonged to the union; Ida Gaskin was my English teacher for three years and we certainly were aware she was in the union – in fact the year after I left school she was PPTA Chair; other staff were clearly involved in teacher politics. Teachers weren’t highly paid but there was an understanding that they had rights which had been hard fought over many years and belonging to the union helped share the load for gaining more rights as negotiations occurred. In every school I worked in, you didn’t have to be active, but you certainly didn’t want to be someone who piggy backed on union members.
There were always a few people who refused to join. Mostly they were nice people who did a good job in the classroom but held pretty right wing views and simply couldn’t countenance joining a union – it struck at the very core of their being. Those people never bothered me, even when I was a branch chair. We came from opposing viewpoints but we each respected each other’s opinion and the right to hold it. In two cases at times of particularly hard fought negotiations I remember no union staff providing morning tea for the union staff and offering to do extra duty as their way of showing support. It was a small gesture but it meant a lot – they did nothing to actively oppose the branch and actually in their own ways they supported us.
Most principals I know still think of themselves as teachers. We might not be in the classroom any more but actually we still could if we had to be. The bottom line is that we probably got into the job because we wanted to help students and we thought we could make a difference. In that regard we are no different to most teachers in school today. Our job is now different, but we want to achieve the same end point. The easiest way to do our job is to work with our staff to a common goal. Co-operation not competition (despite tomorrow’s schools’ best intentions) is the way most of us operate. We acknowledge the scarce resource that is Government funding and want to make the best use of it, for the good of as many staff and students as possible. We want all employees to be covered by the same rules – apart from anything else it makes everything easier to manage and we like easy to manage! We all acknowledge that we need to attract good teachers and middle and senior managers, otherwise who will take our jobs when we leave? To do this, we need to support the Secondary teachers as they negotiate their collective – provided we get a slice of the pie as well.
So if this is your m o, why would you want to be in an organisation that is in competition for the resource and aims to set colleagues in the same school against one another? I find it deeply ironic that some of the most fervently anti-union Principals of recent times are now creating their own union.
I would have thought that if, as a principal, you truly cared about your staff and the students in your school, it would be in your best interests to belong to the same professional organisation as your staff. Our jobs are different, but we are essentially wanting to work together to achieve the same goals.
I acknowledge that PPTA doesn’t always do what we want. On a personal note, I don’t think enough focus has gone into remuneration for middle and senior management in recent claims and getting rid of the tagged Deputy and Assistant Principal positions in the contract was seen as betrayal by some members. There are still a small number of people who sing this tune and it may be that as those people become Principals we are seeing their annoyance with PPTA show itself by them taking the alternative option.
But I suspect a much greater reason for the breaks with PPTA are because some Principals have seen themselves as being in conflict with PPTA . The Field Officers always tell us that STA can deal with us when we are in the role as the employer. In principle that’s fine, but actually we’ve all been paying PPTA fees for a long time and it’s just plain annoying to be given the flick and treated like a second class citizen. We should have the same rights as any other member when we need help – and I think PPTA is going to need to consider how it can address this issue over the next few years because it isn’t going to go away.
We can all do better but we need to work together from inside the tent; we need to support each other better; we need to communicate better; I think we are a pivotal time in our history.We need to know what our members need and whether PPTA/SPC is addressing those needs – and if not, how can we improve. We need to accept that not all Principal will belong to our group; but I would hope I believe it is crucial that most Principals are. We need to be united with our staff in protecting all that is good about the state education system in NZ as we head into potentially murky waters in the years ahead.
Ka kite ano
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