July 2020: After more than 5000 people signed the petition in less than a week, Evolve backed down and withdrew unfair and unlawful contracts that would have halved ECE teachers’ pay. What’s more, the company pledged to actually pass on a 2.3% funding increase from the Government to improve teacher pay to the teachers! We will need to monitor this closely to make sure it happens... but I’m so proud of the brave teachers at Evolve who had the courage to stand up collectively with their union and win this fight — with your support.
If you’d like to get updates on the campaign for fair pay for ECE teachers, join the campaign at www.ecevoice.org.
Thanks! Ngā mihi
Virginia Oakly
ECE representative on NZEI Te Riu National Executive
We call on the Minister of Education Hon Chris Hipkins to:
✊🏼 Stop the new Evolve contracts - they’re unfair and unlawful
✊🏼 Fix the broken funding system which allows profiteering off children by big corporates
✊🏼 Protect and respect teachers and ensure they have basic job security and pay parity with all other teachers.
Protect quality teaching for our youngest children – sign to stand up for fair work and fair pay for ECE teachers!
Why is this important?
Teachers in one of our biggest early childhood corporations are fighting a new contract that could cut their guaranteed hours and income by 50%. Please stand up and support them!
In one of the worst examples of how broken New Zealand’s early childhood education system is, Evolve Education – which continued to get full government funding through the Covid-19 lockdown and got millions in wage subsidies – is asking hundreds of teachers to sign new contracts guaranteeing them just 20 hours of work a week.
What’s worse, Evolve would require them to be available for a further 20 hours a week - with no compensation for this availability and no chance to earn an income elsewhere. This is unfair and unlawful
Evolve owns Lollipops, Active Explorers, Learning Adventures, Pascals, Little Earth, Little Lights and Little Wonders. This contract would impact on the quality of teaching and consistency of relationships with thousands of young children.
Many teachers in Evolve are refusing to sign the contracts – but we need your support. We want to stop this now before it leads to further diminishing of quality teaching and working conditions across the whole ECE sector.
We are taking a stand to protect the quality of teaching and learning for children, and to protect basic working conditions for all ECE teachers. And we’re angry that in spite of increased Government funding for ECE services in May’s Budget, there’s still a pay gap of more than 24% between ECE teachers and our colleagues in kindergarten and schools.
Sign this petition asking the Government to step in urgently to stop the new Evolve contracts and to change the system to protect children and teachers everywhere.
How it will be delivered
We’re seeking a meeting between Minister Hipkins and teachers from Evolve to explain why the ECE system needs to be transformed to protect quality for children and teachers.
