Kielder.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Up to one hundred thousand union members across health and education are on strike today. The action prompted Public Service Minister Judith Collins to pen a letter to New Zealanders saying the strikes are more about politics than outcomes. The mega strike is being tipped to be the largest in our history.
So as nurses, doctors and teachers take to the picket line, we'll take a look back at industrial action in Altieroa and whether it's all actually worth it. Today on the Front Page, Victoria University of Wellington Emeritus Professor Gordon Anderson is with us to discuss the history of labor laws in New Zealand. Gordon, what's happening this week is being called historic, would you agree?
Semi historic and probably historical within the living memory of anyone who's around these days. I mean the last massive strike, of course, which we know for a long time, was the nineteen fifty one Waterfront locker, and we had quite high strike levels in the mid nineteen seventies, but since then strike numbers have been relatively those upp but in the eighties, but since nineteen ninety extremely low levels until the last couple of years.
Well, I was going to say, the last couple of years, it does feel like there have been a lot more strikes than are quote usual I suppose, is that right?
Yes, I mean they sort of come and go. The main difference courses that the strikes these days tend to be in the public sector because the unions that used to go on stroke don't really exist anymore. So you know, the classical unions that used to go on strike with the meat works, some of the transport industry, the wharfs, seafair is, those sort of people. But those unions, of course have largely disappeared as that type of work disappeared.
So the big unions these days, well otherwise were the big unions they used to strike us off there the big public sector unions. So the only large unions left the museum, with the exception of ED, which of course is very widespread, but the only large unions with a single employer tend to be the state sector unions. And it's only lawful to strike when you're striking in relation
to collective bargaining. So if you're likely to have large numbers of strikes and they have to relate to collective bargaining obviously going to be connective bargaining in the state sector. Who were the only big employers.
Is that something that's changed over time? I mean, how has the law evolved to become the Employment Act that we see today?
In very broad terms. You weren't supposed to go on strike at all until about nineteen eighty seven.
Wow, that's quite late.
However, that didn't stop people doing it, right, and there was a sort of period from about the early nineteen seventies onwards when strikes were quite common. You had a rather strange position there when they weren't unlawful under the Act, that they were unlawful at common law. In the main, everyone just ignored the common law. However, in nineteen eighty seven there was a specific statute or definition of a lawful and unlawful strike put into the legislation that's been
there ever since. So really only after that time that the legality of the strike has been a major issue, and that was narrowed a little bit in nineteen ninety one so that you can only strike in relation to bargaining for a connective agreement that's going to cover you, and that's still the current law.
Does that still kind of stand up today or should there be any more changes to labor laws? In your opinion, it.
Seems to have worked relatively well up until now. I mean, if you ask the union, as they would claim those the current restriction is too narrow because it stops sympathy strikes. On the other hand, there is some compensation for that and the ability of employers to use replacement labor during a strike, So there's a balance. That's not a balance everyone would perhaps wholly agree with, but it's not totally unreasonable either.
What are sympathy strikes?
Oh, it's if I go on strike to support you, not refusing to finish the.
Podcast turns up in solidarity.
Yeah, in solidarity.
Yeah, no worry about that happening. We'll get this done, Gordon. Recent reforms have seen things like pay deductions for partial strikes. What does that suggest about the current government's approach to industrial action?
Which bit of the current government you ask, I suspect? I mean, the current Minister for Workplace Relations is obviously not exactly pro worker. If I can be polite and.
You don't have to be polite here.
Yeah, I'm sure there are elements within the government who'd be be quite happy to further restrict the ability to strike. As long as you've got it, as long as people are doing collective bargaining, there's not really a problem that. The problem you have with the state sector of course, that they should actually be doing the bargaining because the centu of course, this is bargaining between an employer and employees.
And what's happening is a very strong political element is creeping and the more politicians are involved that probably the more politically it gets. Rather than trying to resolve particular industrial disputes. So I mean, if we were dealing with private sector employers, the focus would be probably very much stronger on how do we settle this dispute? You know, how far are we prepared to go to increase paints on?
And of course, yeah, the government's thinking of it, and I suspect in a wider terms and particularly is there at a period of austerity of that sort of thing, So that whole political side of course is coming into it and complicating the negotiations which would normally be resolved at least at a slighter distance I think from ministers at the moment that all the comments are coming from minister's who, of course should be a step back from employment negotiations.
Does the law as it stands have a good balance between a worker's right to strike versus minimizing disruption to public services?
Say, pretty much Employment Relations Act. There's a whole chunk in it on strikes, particularly in the health sector, and there is an obligation there to maintain the basic operations
of the health sector. So while some routine surgery may not be able to be done, you know, if you decide they have a heart attack today, you can still be assured that the appropriate services will be available to deal with that, and there is a mechanism for sorting that out of there's a disagreement between what the hospitals think the level of services should be and what the unions do, and that's usually fairly carefully observedly.
O Loik.
This is a really important moment for New Zealanders to stand up and say we want better funded healthcare systems, better funded schools. And the reason for that is that we all need access to these services and we don't want to turn up to hospital and find there aren't enough nurses because they've all left to go to Australia for higher wages. We need to make sure we keep
nurses in New Zealand, teachers in New Zealand. So I think it is really important for the whole country to stand up now and say we want our hospitals, our schools funded properly. Government is up to you to find the money and make sure they are funded properly.
How important is a worker's right to strike.
Extremely because in the absence of it, you're stuck with taking whatever the boss offers that you can't really do anything else. I mean, obviously, I suppose you can resign from the job and walk away from it, but then you go to another job that we're in the same position. So the strike the right to strikes are essential to any form of workers being able to improve their conditions of employment. And of course you have to remember that in the absence of a right to strike, it's usually
individuals negotiating with large companies or something like that. So the economic leverage each has got us quite different. So collective bargaining probably doesn't what definitely doesn't totally rebalance things, but it does give some degree of ability to try and negotiate better terms and conditions.
Do you think it's still useful as a bargaining tool.
Yes, workers don't usually go on strike in spite of what people seem to think at the drop of a hat, because it's usually involved the drop of a day's pay and most people don't want to lose a day's pay. So you'll usually find there's something of a history going
on around the strikes. I mean, for example, the seventeen is the eighties, the classical tactic was there is the system tended to work on one or two strong unions going on strike and getting say a five percent pay rise, and everyone else will then get somewhere between four point five and five point five. So there was a bit
of a trend setting element and strikes back then. These days that's quite different because which you don't have the awards system and so on, But nevertheless it is a central part of the bargaining system.
Looking back at the history of strikes, I suppose what is one that comes to mind that has made the most impact. And I suppose when I say impact a public disruption, I suppose how you know notorious it was at the time, and b are there any strikes that have changed the course of employment law in New Zealand as we know it.
In terms of the one that ones that have had the biggest impact. It depends what you mean by impact us as the ones I talked about in the seventies where you had one strike essentially setting up what was going to be the rough approximate approximate wage increase for everyone in the country over the next year is obviously had significant economic impact, but they are often relatively short strikes. You know, everyone knew, you know what the game was,
so to speak. In terms of ones that have had a massive public impact, probably one that has was a strike at was it the freezing works down and at Bluff many years ago when there was a decision to prosecute the people who had gone on strike, which never quite there was moldering playing funny games before an election. That was quite significant in the sense that they then had rethinking strike law to sort of, I suppose, bring it into line with what was going on and practice
and so on. But since then one in terms of changing employment law as a whole, probably not, because the law has now been pretty much settled since nineteen eighty seven, which seems like yesterday to an old person like me, But in fact, yeah, we're talking almost forty years ago. So we've had an extremely stable system of employment law at the strike law since then. So and generally speaking
it works fairly well. That does allow the right to strike, It has some limits on the right striking that you have to be doing it in relation to collective bargaining, which limits the overall impact.
Does that mean that I can't because I'm you know, if nobody, I can't just walk off the job.
You can only strike if you're a union member and that union is negotiating a new collective agreement for you. Well, there's an exception for safety and health strikes. If the ceiling above you're about to fall on your head, you could walk off, But outside that and those type of strikes are obviously very rare because it's usually someone refusing to sort of make safety improvements. But generally speaking, the number of people who can go and strike at any
one time is somewhat constrained. And you'll notice in the current lot it's the asms on the doctor's side who are striking, but not the other two doctors unions who don't have a collective agreement, the negotiation at.
The moment, that's what Public Service Minister Jude the Collins is doing, telling parents they should be quizzing teachers about the timing of the strikes. She's saying to parents, go and ask these clowns why they're striking, then having a teacher only day, then having a day off on Monday because the long weekend, the nerve of it, that's what
she's saying. She is, for all intents and purposes, calling on people to harass teachers who aren't breaking the law, whose actions yet might be a bit of an inconvenience. But that's all as far as I'm consumed. The teachers shouldn't have to defend themselves to nagging parents, and the government shouldn't be encouraging these parents to harass them about it. But that's how I feel. But how do you see.
It when it comes to you mentioned before that ministers could do better at stepping back when it comes to collective bargaining. Is there any way that we can make that actually happen.
Not unless the ministers choose to do it. At the end of the day, the government, of course is funding these settlements. But if you're trying to settle it. You usually do it by giving appropriate instructions to the state's Services commissioner. What's it called these days.
Are the Public Service Commissioner Services.
So yeah, the normal thing is the government will give some sort of fiscal flexibility I suppose another flexibility to the commission who will then do the negotiations. What unusual with the current round is that the commissioner himself is directly controlling the negotiations. Previously that used to be delegated to the Education Department or Ministry of Health or whoever. So at the central employer level, this negotiating powers being
sort of pulled back to the center. And obviously with the current government, ministers much more directly involved, and you see in fact very little from the commissioner and most of the fronting up is being done well, mainly by
a Minister of Health. Occasionally the Education minister stickson and of course you're not hearing anything at all from the Minister for Workplace Relations on this, so it's sort of it's probably being made more political from that end, I think, rather than the union end, because I mean, obviously they're quite concerned because the pay levels being a pay increases being offered seen to be sitting below, amounting to a cut in real income, so ill the you know that,
plus the some general issues around working conditions, So what's driving that side of things? But politically, of course, you've got a number of these big connectors have expired, all at the same time, and they're all negotiating. So presumably the unions involved perhaps coordinating this to some extent and trying to get the biggest splash, which are succeeding quite well.
And I mean, if you can all have a one day strike and several hundred thousand people involved, it looks at probably be better from pushing as a reinforced view of what should be going on, rather than their small strikes which don't get much attention.
Oh we're talking about it, aren't we, Gordon Yea, indeed, thanks so much for joining us.
That's all right, no problem. But all.
That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzdherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who is also our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.