Teachers need lesson on comparative wealth in pay claim
The Post Primary Teachers’ Association says, in support of its latest pay claim: “After 15 years experience, a NZ secondary school teacher’s salary is 17% lower than the OECD average.”
Ummm that’s roughly how much our national gdp per person is below the OECD average.
I think the nurses ran a similar argument a year or so ago.
The PPTA’s complaint is a bit like Zimbabwean teachers complaining that their salaries are 0.5% of the OECD average.
You need to put pay in the context of overall national wealth. By and large you get paid what your country can afford.
BigCake’s not disagreeing that teachers shouldn’t be paid and valued more – they have a critical part to play in lifting NZ out of its economic mess.
But till the economy starts growing to a meaningful extent, any pay rise they get has to come at the expense of someone else.
I’ve not done the hard work of researching this, but I’d hazard a guess Teachers’ salaries have risen in comparison with those of people in other industries with similar skills. They’re certainly shot ahead of journalists’ salaries over the last 20 years.
In other words, their share of New Zealand’s cake has grown rather than fallen.
Bill Bennett, August 24, 2010 at 6:17 pm