Leighton Watson: Senior Lecturer of maths and statistics on PPTA members are voting on teacher pay offer

New comparisons show teacher salaries have plummeted relative to the minimum wage.

PPTA members are voting on a new Government pay offer, while primary teachers have decided to reject their latest offer.

Canterbury University maths lecturer Leighton Watson's done a comparison of teachers' pay with the minimum wage.

He told Ryan Bridge a beginning teacher was paid $33 thousand in 1999, and now they get $64 thousand.

Watson says it seems like a great increase, but if they got paid the same now, relative to the minimum wage, it would be $100 thousand.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do the secondary teachers have a leg to stand on.
That's the question the union are telling their members they
should vote down the government's new payoffer. This is after
the Ministry doubled the previous one two point five percent
in the first year two percent in the next Lighton
Watson Senior Lecture of Mass and Stats at Canterbury Unions
with me this morning, light and good.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Morning, good morning worry, thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
So you don't think this is enough? You've done a
comparison to the minimum wage as a benchmark. What is
the difference?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
So teacher salaries have kind of plummeted relative to the
minimum wage and I guess, maybe more importantly to the
median wage over the past twenty five years. In nineteen
ninety nine, beginning teachers paid thirty three thousand dollars and
nowadays they're paid sixty four thousand dollars, which seems like
a great increase. But if a beginning teachers paid the

(00:49):
same amount now as they were in nineteen ninety nine
relative to the minimum wage, that the earning of one
hundred thousand dollars, and if they're paid the same as
they were relative to the median wage, so I could
have kept up with need wage inflation, then they're beginning
paid eighty one thousand dollars or got seventeen thousand dollars
more than they can't be paid.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Okay, so you reckon they should be getting at least
seventeen grand more than they're currently being paid. Would this
new offer not do that?

Speaker 2 (01:14):
This new offer is an increase of two point five
to two point seventy five percent, depending on where they
sit on the salary scale, which equates to about thirteen
hundred or two thousand, five hundred dollars depending off the
bottom of the top of the salary scale. And over
the last twenty five years they decreased relative to the
meeting wage suffered. If teacher salaries had kept out with

(01:35):
the average wage inflation, then they should be earning seventeen
thousand dollars. And I'm not really making a judgment now,
I'm just giving you the numbers that seventeen thousand dollars
is a lot more than thirteen hundred.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yeah, understand So with the minimum wage comparison, has everybody
not in everyone who's working right now? Have they not?
Also because the minimum wage is shot up, I mean
we're going up twenty two percent in the last two
in the last three years alone of the labor government.
Has everyone not fallen behind and in relative terms to
the minimum wage because it's been ramped up so rapidly.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah, so all about twenty five years, minimum wagees increased
by a factor of three, whereas teacher salaries have only
increased by a factor of two. But I guess the
difference is the medium wages increased by factor of two
point five. And so that's really that. You know, you
can make arguments about the minimum wage should be higher
than it was of seven dollars twenty five years ago,
and I don't think people are going to argue with that.

(02:28):
But I think there's the difference between teacher salaries in
what the average worker the average wage inflation has been
and teacher salaries have not kept up.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
What about other comparable industries.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
So with this work looking at teacher salaries, I also
looked at a bunch of kind of healthcare professions and
there's been similar, similar kind of erosion of income across
a range of other healthcare professions as well as education.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
It's it's always a state funded organization, state funded industries
that seem to have this problem is that?

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, yeah, and you know, I don't leave the government
from making decisions about where to put their money.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, maybe we should privatize everything. Then that might keep up.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
I think there might be some other issues associated with
some privatization.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Laton, appreciate your time this morning, Layton Watson Senior Lecture
of Mass and Stats, Canterbury Unit.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
For more from early edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live
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