The New Zealand Educational Institute Te Riu Roa hosted a paid union meeting at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery yesterday, to which local political party representatives were invited and asked to pledge to funding pay parity for all early childhood education workers.
Labour MP Rachel Brooking and Green MP Francisco Hernandez turned up and signed the pledge, but their National, Act and New Zealand First counterparts did not.
Early childhood teacher Marchell Linzey said he felt undervalued as a teacher by the government.
"It’s no surprise they didn’t show up — I would’ve been surprised if they did. It shows they don’t value teachers.
"They’re out to support their rich mates, they don’t care about teachers or nurses."
Mr Linzey said the funding from the government partially covered pay parity, but it was not enough to cover the cost of employing a teacher at the top end of the pay scale.
There were not enough teachers training to become early childhood teachers, either.
"When I first went into training as an [early childhood] teacher in 2008 ... there were over 300 first year students alone doing [early childhood] at teachers’ college; now you’re lucky if there would be 30."
Mr Hernandez said it was shameful no-one from the coalition government was there.
He said the Green party would fight against the privatisation of the sector and against attempts to dismantle pay parity.
Ms Brooking said the paid stop work union meeting showed the level of concern teachers had about the sector, and the government was not listening to their pleas.
