Speaker 1: Kielder.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Up to
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand union members across health and education are
Speaker 2: on strike today. The action prompted Public Service Minister Judith
Speaker 2: Collins to pen a letter to New Zealanders saying the
Speaker 2: strikes are more about politics than outcomes. The mega strike
Speaker 2: is being tipped to be the largest in our history.
Speaker 2: So as nurses, doctors and teachers take to the picket line,
Speaker 2: we'll take a look back at industrial action in Altieroa
Speaker 2: and whether it's all actually worth it. Today on the
Speaker 2: Front Page, Victoria University of Wellington Emeritus Professor Gordon Anderson
Speaker 2: is with us to discuss the history of labor laws
Speaker 2: in New Zealand. Gordon, what's happening this week is being
Speaker 2: called historic, would you agree?
Speaker 1: Semi historic and probably historical within the living memory of
Speaker 1: anyone who's around these days. I mean the last massive strike,
Speaker 1: of course, which we know for a long time, was
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifty one Waterfront locker, and we had quite
Speaker 1: high strike levels in the mid nineteen seventies, but since
Speaker 1: then strike numbers have been relatively those upp but in
Speaker 1: the eighties, but since nineteen ninety extremely low levels until
Speaker 1: the last couple of years.
Speaker 2: Well, I was going to say, the last couple of years,
Speaker 2: it does feel like there have been a lot more
Speaker 2: strikes than are quote usual I suppose, is that right?
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean they sort of come and go. The
Speaker 1: main difference courses that the strikes these days tend to
Speaker 1: be in the public sector because the unions that used
Speaker 1: to go on stroke don't really exist anymore. So you know,
Speaker 1: the classical unions that used to go on strike with
Speaker 1: the meat works, some of the transport industry, the wharfs,
Speaker 1: seafair is, those sort of people. But those unions, of
Speaker 1: course have largely disappeared as that type of work disappeared.
Speaker 1: So the big unions these days, well otherwise were the
Speaker 1: big unions they used to strike us off there the
Speaker 1: big public sector unions. So the only large unions left
Speaker 1: the museum, with the exception of ED, which of course
Speaker 1: is very widespread, but the only large unions with a
Speaker 1: single employer tend to be the state sector unions. And
Speaker 1: it's only lawful to strike when you're striking in relation
Speaker 1: to collective bargaining. So if you're likely to have large
Speaker 1: numbers of strikes and they have to relate to collective
Speaker 1: bargaining obviously going to be connective bargaining in the state sector.
Speaker 1: Who were the only big employers.
Speaker 2: Is that something that's changed over time? I mean, how
Speaker 2: has the law evolved to become the Employment Act that
Speaker 2: we see today?
Speaker 1: In very broad terms. You weren't supposed to go on
Speaker 1: strike at all until about nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's quite late.
Speaker 1: However, that didn't stop people doing it, right, and there
Speaker 1: was a sort of period from about the early nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies onwards when strikes were quite common. You had a
Speaker 1: rather strange position there when they weren't unlawful under the Act,
Speaker 1: that they were unlawful at common law. In the main,
Speaker 1: everyone just ignored the common law. However, in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: seven there was a specific statute or definition of a
Speaker 1: lawful and unlawful strike put into the legislation that's been
Speaker 1: there ever since. So really only after that time that
Speaker 1: the legality of the strike has been a major issue,
Speaker 1: and that was narrowed a little bit in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: one so that you can only strike in relation to
Speaker 1: bargaining for a connective agreement that's going to cover you,
Speaker 1: and that's still the current law.
Speaker 2: Does that still kind of stand up today or should
Speaker 2: there be any more changes to labor laws? In your opinion, it.
Speaker 1: Seems to have worked relatively well up until now. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you ask the union, as they would claim those
Speaker 1: the current restriction is too narrow because it stops sympathy strikes.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, there is some compensation for that
Speaker 1: and the ability of employers to use replacement labor during
Speaker 1: a strike, So there's a balance. That's not a balance
Speaker 1: everyone would perhaps wholly agree with, but it's not totally
Speaker 1: unreasonable either.
Speaker 2: What are sympathy strikes?
Speaker 1: Oh, it's if I go on strike to support you,
Speaker 1: not refusing to finish the.
Speaker 2: Podcast turns up in solidarity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in solidarity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no worry about that happening. We'll get this done, Gordon.
Speaker 2: Recent reforms have seen things like pay deductions for partial strikes.
Speaker 2: What does that suggest about the current government's approach to
Speaker 2: industrial action?
Speaker 1: Which bit of the current government you ask, I suspect?
Speaker 1: I mean, the current Minister for Workplace Relations is obviously
Speaker 1: not exactly pro worker. If I can be polite and.
Speaker 2: You don't have to be polite here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure there are elements within the government who'd
Speaker 1: be be quite happy to further restrict the ability to strike.
Speaker 1: As long as you've got it, as long as people
Speaker 1: are doing collective bargaining, there's not really a problem that.
Speaker 1: The problem you have with the state sector of course,
Speaker 1: that they should actually be doing the bargaining because the
Speaker 1: centu of course, this is bargaining between an employer and employees.
Speaker 1: And what's happening is a very strong political element is
Speaker 1: creeping and the more politicians are involved that probably the
Speaker 1: more politically it gets. Rather than trying to resolve particular
Speaker 1: industrial disputes. So I mean, if we were dealing with
Speaker 1: private sector employers, the focus would be probably very much
Speaker 1: stronger on how do we settle this dispute? You know,
Speaker 1: how far are we prepared to go to increase paints on?
Speaker 1: And of course, yeah, the government's thinking of it, and
Speaker 1: I suspect in a wider terms and particularly is there
Speaker 1: at a period of austerity of that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: So that whole political side of course is coming into
Speaker 1: it and complicating the negotiations which would normally be resolved
Speaker 1: at least at a slighter distance I think from ministers
Speaker 1: at the moment that all the comments are coming from
Speaker 1: minister's who, of course should be a step back from
Speaker 1: employment negotiations.
Speaker 2: Does the law as it stands have a good balance
Speaker 2: between a worker's right to strike versus minimizing disruption to
Speaker 2: public services?
Speaker 1: Say, pretty much Employment Relations Act. There's a whole chunk
Speaker 1: in it on strikes, particularly in the health sector, and
Speaker 1: there is an obligation there to maintain the basic operations
Speaker 1: of the health sector. So while some routine surgery may
Speaker 1: not be able to be done, you know, if you
Speaker 1: decide they have a heart attack today, you can still
Speaker 1: be assured that the appropriate services will be available to
Speaker 1: deal with that, and there is a mechanism for sorting
Speaker 1: that out of there's a disagreement between what the hospitals
Speaker 1: think the level of services should be and what the
Speaker 1: unions do, and that's usually fairly carefully observedly.
Speaker 2: O Loik.
Speaker 3: This is a really important moment for New Zealanders to
Speaker 3: stand up and say we want better funded healthcare systems,
Speaker 3: better funded schools. And the reason for that is that
Speaker 3: we all need access to these services and we don't
Speaker 3: want to turn up to hospital and find there aren't
Speaker 3: enough nurses because they've all left to go to Australia
Speaker 3: for higher wages. We need to make sure we keep
Speaker 3: nurses in New Zealand, teachers in New Zealand. So I
Speaker 3: think it is really important for the whole country to
Speaker 3: stand up now and say we want our hospitals, our
Speaker 3: schools funded properly. Government is up to you to find
Speaker 3: the money and make sure they are funded properly.
Speaker 2: How important is a worker's right to strike.
Speaker 1: Extremely because in the absence of it, you're stuck with
Speaker 1: taking whatever the boss offers that you can't really do
Speaker 1: anything else. I mean, obviously, I suppose you can resign
Speaker 1: from the job and walk away from it, but then
Speaker 1: you go to another job that we're in the same position.
Speaker 1: So the strike the right to strikes are essential to
Speaker 1: any form of workers being able to improve their conditions
Speaker 1: of employment. And of course you have to remember that
Speaker 1: in the absence of a right to strike, it's usually
Speaker 1: individuals negotiating with large companies or something like that. So
Speaker 1: the economic leverage each has got us quite different. So
Speaker 1: collective bargaining probably doesn't what definitely doesn't totally rebalance things,
Speaker 1: but it does give some degree of ability to try
Speaker 1: and negotiate better terms and conditions.
Speaker 2: Do you think it's still useful as a bargaining tool.
Speaker 1: Yes, workers don't usually go on strike in spite of
Speaker 1: what people seem to think at the drop of a hat,
Speaker 1: because it's usually involved the drop of a day's pay
Speaker 1: and most people don't want to lose a day's pay.
Speaker 1: So you'll usually find there's something of a history going
Speaker 1: on around the strikes. I mean, for example, the seventeen
Speaker 1: is the eighties, the classical tactic was there is the
Speaker 1: system tended to work on one or two strong unions
Speaker 1: going on strike and getting say a five percent pay rise,
Speaker 1: and everyone else will then get somewhere between four point
Speaker 1: five and five point five. So there was a bit
Speaker 1: of a trend setting element and strikes back then. These
Speaker 1: days that's quite different because which you don't have the
Speaker 1: awards system and so on, But nevertheless it is a
Speaker 1: central part of the bargaining system.
Speaker 2: Looking back at the history of strikes, I suppose what
Speaker 2: is one that comes to mind that has made the
Speaker 2: most impact. And I suppose when I say impact a
Speaker 2: public disruption, I suppose how you know notorious it was
Speaker 2: at the time, and b are there any strikes that
Speaker 2: have changed the course of employment law in New Zealand
Speaker 2: as we know it.
Speaker 1: In terms of the one that ones that have had
Speaker 1: the biggest impact. It depends what you mean by impact
Speaker 1: us as the ones I talked about in the seventies
Speaker 1: where you had one strike essentially setting up what was
Speaker 1: going to be the rough approximate approximate wage increase for
Speaker 1: everyone in the country over the next year is obviously
Speaker 1: had significant economic impact, but they are often relatively short strikes.
Speaker 1: You know, everyone knew, you know what the game was,
Speaker 1: so to speak. In terms of ones that have had
Speaker 1: a massive public impact, probably one that has was a
Speaker 1: strike at was it the freezing works down and at
Speaker 1: Bluff many years ago when there was a decision to
Speaker 1: prosecute the people who had gone on strike, which never
Speaker 1: quite there was moldering playing funny games before an election.
Speaker 1: That was quite significant in the sense that they then
Speaker 1: had rethinking strike law to sort of, I suppose, bring
Speaker 1: it into line with what was going on and practice
Speaker 1: and so on. But since then one in terms of
Speaker 1: changing employment law as a whole, probably not, because the
Speaker 1: law has now been pretty much settled since nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: which seems like yesterday to an old person like me,
Speaker 1: But in fact, yeah, we're talking almost forty years ago.
Speaker 1: So we've had an extremely stable system of employment law
Speaker 1: at the strike law since then. So and generally speaking
Speaker 1: it works fairly well. That does allow the right to strike,
Speaker 1: It has some limits on the right striking that you
Speaker 1: have to be doing it in relation to collective bargaining,
Speaker 1: which limits the overall impact.
Speaker 2: Does that mean that I can't because I'm you know,
Speaker 2: if nobody, I can't just walk off the job.
Speaker 1: You can only strike if you're a union member and
Speaker 1: that union is negotiating a new collective agreement for you. Well,
Speaker 1: there's an exception for safety and health strikes. If the
Speaker 1: ceiling above you're about to fall on your head, you
Speaker 1: could walk off, But outside that and those type of
Speaker 1: strikes are obviously very rare because it's usually someone refusing
Speaker 1: to sort of make safety improvements. But generally speaking, the
Speaker 1: number of people who can go and strike at any
Speaker 1: one time is somewhat constrained. And you'll notice in the
Speaker 1: current lot it's the asms on the doctor's side who
Speaker 1: are striking, but not the other two doctors unions who
Speaker 1: don't have a collective agreement, the negotiation at.
Speaker 4: The moment, that's what Public Service Minister Jude the Collins
Speaker 4: is doing, telling parents they should be quizzing teachers about
Speaker 4: the timing of the strikes. She's saying to parents, go
Speaker 4: and ask these clowns why they're striking, then having a
Speaker 4: teacher only day, then having a day off on Monday
Speaker 4: because the long weekend, the nerve of it, that's what
Speaker 4: she's saying. She is, for all intents and purposes, calling
Speaker 4: on people to harass teachers who aren't breaking the law,
Speaker 4: whose actions yet might be a bit of an inconvenience.
Speaker 4: But that's all as far as I'm consumed. The teachers
Speaker 4: shouldn't have to defend themselves to nagging parents, and the
Speaker 4: government shouldn't be encouraging these parents to harass them about it.
Speaker 4: But that's how I feel. But how do you see.
Speaker 2: It when it comes to you mentioned before that ministers
Speaker 2: could do better at stepping back when it comes to
Speaker 2: collective bargaining. Is there any way that we can make
Speaker 2: that actually happen.
Speaker 1: Not unless the ministers choose to do it. At the
Speaker 1: end of the day, the government, of course is funding
Speaker 1: these settlements. But if you're trying to settle it. You
Speaker 1: usually do it by giving appropriate instructions to the state's
Speaker 1: Services commissioner. What's it called these days.
Speaker 2: Are the Public Service Commissioner Services.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the normal thing is the government will give
Speaker 1: some sort of fiscal flexibility I suppose another flexibility to
Speaker 1: the commission who will then do the negotiations. What unusual
Speaker 1: with the current round is that the commissioner himself is
Speaker 1: directly controlling the negotiations. Previously that used to be delegated
Speaker 1: to the Education Department or Ministry of Health or whoever.
Speaker 1: So at the central employer level, this negotiating powers being
Speaker 1: sort of pulled back to the center. And obviously with
Speaker 1: the current government, ministers much more directly involved, and you
Speaker 1: see in fact very little from the commissioner and most
Speaker 1: of the fronting up is being done well, mainly by
Speaker 1: a Minister of Health. Occasionally the Education minister stickson and
Speaker 1: of course you're not hearing anything at all from the
Speaker 1: Minister for Workplace Relations on this, so it's sort of
Speaker 1: it's probably being made more political from that end, I think,
Speaker 1: rather than the union end, because I mean, obviously they're
Speaker 1: quite concerned because the pay levels being a pay increases
Speaker 1: being offered seen to be sitting below, amounting to a
Speaker 1: cut in real income, so ill the you know that,
Speaker 1: plus the some general issues around working conditions, So what's
Speaker 1: driving that side of things? But politically, of course, you've
Speaker 1: got a number of these big connectors have expired, all
Speaker 1: at the same time, and they're all negotiating. So presumably
Speaker 1: the unions involved perhaps coordinating this to some extent and
Speaker 1: trying to get the biggest splash, which are succeeding quite well.
Speaker 1: And I mean, if you can all have a one
Speaker 1: day strike and several hundred thousand people involved, it looks
Speaker 1: at probably be better from pushing as a reinforced view
Speaker 1: of what should be going on, rather than their small
Speaker 1: strikes which don't get much attention.
Speaker 2: Oh we're talking about it, aren't we, Gordon Yea, indeed,
Speaker 2: thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: That's all right, no problem. But all.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at enzdherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
Speaker 2: produced by Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who is also
Speaker 2: our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page
Speaker 2: on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune
Speaker 2: in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.