Coalition labours under great expectations
The timing of strike threats from a growing number of corners of the public sector must be galling for the Government. After years of small increases under National, Labour arrives in the Beehive, makes an offer – then doubles it – and nurses announce plans to walk off the job for the first time in a generation.
So why now? Why didn’t nurses strike at any point during the last nine years?
‘‘All of the concerns that you are hearing here, were raised with the previous government,’’ New Zealand Nurses Organisation chief executive Memo Musa said as the group formally rejected the Government’s $500 million offer. It was ‘‘not about sympathy’’, he added. ‘‘The issue now is pretty much an issue of timing.’’
Timing is everything, and nurses are not alone in realising this. Teachers – who admittedly have used industrial action regularly – are calling for ‘‘action’’, with votes on strikes in August.
Thousands of core public servants are also being balloted on strikes. Although the proposed action by more than 4000 members of the Public Service Association – two two-hour strikes in July – will hardly bring the nation to a halt, the way it is being billed is telling.
The PSA has opted for ‘‘co-ordinated’’ action across Inland Revenue and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (Mbie), with national secretary Glenn Barclay saying it was ‘‘a big deal because we haven’t had industrial action in the public service for a long time’’.
Coming just two days after the Government announced a pay increase for the 2000 lowest-paid public servants, a move celebrated by the PSA, Barclay’s comments underline the reality of a change in government.
Just as the parent who listens more patiently to their children’s complaints will get almost all of the moaning, Labour will come under more pressure from unions for a good reason.
It is not just that expectations are higher, it is that the Government has a sympathetic ear. Unions are likely to protest more under this administration because it will work. If the PSA sent thousands of public servants to the front lawn of Parliament to protest over pay when National was in power, the Beehive would probably check that television networks were aware.
Where National would see such protests as a sign of its restraint, Labour will feel pain.
The issue is partly of the Government’s making. As well as signing up to budget responsibility rules, which pledge to cut debt as a share of the economy over five years, Labour made a series of pledges to increase wages, and claimed workers had been missing out for a decade. ‘‘If working people’s slice of the economy hadn’t shrunk under National, workers’ pay packets would have been $23 billion larger,’’ the Labour manifesto boomed.
The new Government also, incidentally, has a clumsy approach to negotiations. When comment was sought on the threat of a PSA member strike, the Beehive, IRD and Mbie all said it would be inappropriate to comment during the negotiations.
While no-one said it explicitly, the implication was that to do so would be bad faith.
This approach was in stark contrast to when the district health boards called a press conference in late May to publicise that they were throwing all the money available at reaching a deal with nurses, before it had even given the nurses’ union time to properly digest the offer.
The move appeared to be an attempt to show how generous the DHBs were being, in the face of the risk of strikes in hospitals.
Good luck turning public opinion against nurses, especially ones who have promised to work to ensure the strikes do not endanger public safety.
A decision to announce the offer seems even sillier now that it has been rejected, given that Health Minister David Clark says there is no more money available.
Doubling your offer during negotiations tends to suggest you have cash to burn. Even if the nurses had liked the offer, it would be smart bargaining to reject it and see if the DHBs had more in reserve.
The negotiations with nurses also risk setting a benchmark for future negotiations. At the first sign of trouble, money is thrown at the problem. In this case, an extra $250m over two years.
In his first of a string of appearances at the prime minister’s post-Cabinet press conference that we will see in coming weeks, Winston Peters warned that the Government needs to run surpluses to cover the costs of unexpected pressures, from biosecurity incursions to natural disasters, and that it takes ‘‘time to fix neglect’’.
But the Government may have already shown that it has a soft spot for demands. The pressure for increases will not ease any time soon.
Timing is everything, and nurses are not alone in realising this.