Employment in a Unionised Environment

The education sector is a highly unionised workforce.

There are multiple unions and professional associations that represent workers in the education sector in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

Collective Employment Agreements cover every employee in education. These employment agreements are negotiated between the representative union(s) and the Secretary for Education, representing school boards as the employer.

In this section, you can learn about union engagement and offering new employees the terms and conditions of the Collective Agreements.

Note: One of the common occurrences in the sector is Paid Union Meetings (PUMs), which entitle union members to meet for up to 2 hours, twice per calendar year. For further guidance, please read our article on paid union meetingsopen_in_new.