Maybe the Taxpayer’s Union should think of an offshoot, the freeloaders’ union.
After a long battle and industrial action the Teachers Unions have succeeded in obtaining a significant improvement in wages and conditions for their members. But not everyone is happy. Some teachers who do not pay union fees and want to freeload on the gains the unions have made also think that they should get the benefit of the negotiation. Even though they have not paid for it and did not strike.
From Simon Collins at the Herald:
Non-union teachers are angry that they will have to wait three months to get the pay rises that the Government has offered to union members.
Ministry of Education deputy secretary Ellen MacGregor-Reid has confirmed that the proposed pay hikes would take effect from July 1 for union members, but not until three months later for teachers who don’t belong to the unions.
Union members, but not non-union members, would also get $1500 one-off payments on July 1.
Teachers who belong to the two unions, the NZ Educational Institute (NZEI) and the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA), will start voting this week on whether to accept the new offer, which would lift the top of the teachers’ basic salary scale from $78,000 to $90,000 by July 2021.
But Justin Lindsay, a Hastings Boys’ High School music teacher who is philosophically opposed to unions, said the three-month delay in the pay rise for non-union members is unprecedented and unfair.
“We are the teachers who would like to see performance pay and individual contracts,” he said.
“That’s a philosophical issue, but I feel like we are being punished for taking that point of view.”
Well Justin I am sure that you have a philosophical issue with bludgers as well. And you have an individual contract. One that is not paid as well as the contract the collective negotiated. Don’t you think expecting the same pay as someone else is just a bit weird?
But there were others who not only held stupid views but were also too stupid to realise that uttering them publicly would result in public ridicule.
Like this guy:
Shiman Singh, a design teacher at De La Salle College in Māngere, said the proposed deal was “an absolute kick in the teeth for non-union members”.
He said unions had not “evolved with the times”. He felt they were no longer necessary to protect workers now that most people were well educated and could access legal representation, and “use the teachers as pawns” in national bargaining.
“This is not the 19th century! Please tell me am I wrong. If this was a private practice the employer would be in a dispute resolution,” he said.
Well Shiman if collectively negotiating better wages and conditions is not evolving with the times I suggest you should review your view on time. And go and negotiate your own wages and conditions if you are that good.
I suggest these guys band together with as many others as they can and demand collectively that they be treated better. Maybe they should form their own union. A freeloaders’ union.
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