2023-05-25 05:00:00
The pay gap between teachers in primary and secondary education may have been closed last year, but education must not once once more fall behind other sectors. “The gap must never be opened once more,” says CNV Education director Tom Boot. At five locations in the Netherlands, the unions AOb, CNV and FNV and FvOv offer petitions to national and local politicians.
Last April, the salaries of teachers in primary and secondary education were leveled to the delight of the sector. Within their salary scale, this meant an improvement of regarding ten percent for primary school teachers, while teachers in secondary education received just under 5 percent.
Education can’t be left behind, can it?
“But the necessary step that was then taken to improve teacher salaries, following we had been on a zero line for years, has now already been eaten up by inflation,” says Jelmer Evers, board member of the teachers’ union AOb. Substantial salary increases have recently been agreed in the healthcare sector and among municipal officials: then education cannot lag behind once more, can it? The doomsday scenario is that salaries in education will once once more fall compared to other sectors following a one-off impulse.
Teachers earn an average of between 3500 and 7100 euros gross per month, including holiday allowance and year-end bonus. Evers can imagine that these amounts are not disappointing at first sight, ‘but a relatively large number of teaching staff are in the lowest scales’. As far as the unions are concerned, at least 10 percent must be added. The cabinet seems to offer room for 5 percent, but that is not negotiable for the unions.
Frank Cörvers, professor of the educational labor market in Maastricht, finds the unions’ demand understandable. “Now that salaries have been leveled, it would be crazy to give secondary education staff a pay rise that they don’t get in primary education.” But it does get pricey, Cörvers acknowledges. “A much larger group of teachers (130,000) will be added to the group of teachers in secondary education (regarding 76,000, ed.).”
The unions have to negotiate with the sector councils
Given the teacher shortage, salaries must remain competitive, employers in primary and secondary education agree. That is not possible with the 5 percent that the cabinet is now offering. “With this, a mathematician will really not be drawn from the business world to the school,” thinks Evers. According to Cörvers, this is indeed the reality. “The problems in education are far from solved. In terms of salary, you have to keep up with other public sectors, and actually also with the private sector. You may end up in a wage-price spiral, but if prices rise, teachers should also be compensated for that, right?”
The tricky thing is that the unions now have to negotiate with the sector councils for primary and secondary education, the PO-Raad and VO-Raad. They have to make do with the money allocated to them by the Ministry of Education. This year that is not enough, the councils said earlier. This is how the exceptional situation has arisen in which employees and employers in education are united once morest the ministry.
This might be a harbinger of the future, if the collective labor agreements for primary and secondary education are merged into a collective labor agreement for basic education. Evers assumes that wage negotiations can then be conducted directly with the ministry. “The sector councils are no longer involved, they now have a difficult position. Directly with the ministry, it can turn into sharp salary negotiations.”
Read also:
‘Historical agreement’: Teacher and lecturer will soon receive the same salary
Teachers have fervently demonstrated and struck for it: the equalization of salaries in primary and secondary education.
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