On May 29, New Zealand saw its largest teachers’ strike ever. Fifty-thousand teachers (out of a total population of just 4.8 million people) walked off the job and marched in cities and towns across the country.

The teachers are calling on Jacinda Ardern’s Labour government to improve wages and conditions after almost a year of fruitless contract negotiations and to address a long-standing crisis in the profession that has been under sustained political attack; stagnating wages, declining morale, increasing workloads, and an exodus of staff has reached a desperate crisis point.

This is the third strike by teachers since the election of the Labour government in late 2017. It is a sign of the stalemate and disappointment teachers feel about a government that seemed to signal a significant departure from the austerity, anti-public education, and anti-teacher policies of the past.