DO STRIKES ACTUALLY WORK?
New Zealand’s best-known strikes all ended in defeat for the workers. So what are the prospects for the strikers of today? Leith Huffadine reports.
On Tuesday, bus drivers were striking in Auckland. The nursing union has threatened strikes in July that could have widespread effects on the healthcare system.
Cinema workers have been striking this week, and Wendy’s workers went on strike last week.
It seems that strike action is all around us, but how effective is it?
In the early 20th century, we had the world’s most effective system for settling disputes between employers and employees, according to Te Ara, The Encyclopedia of New Zealand.
Some early examples of striking included Ma¯ ori timber workers stopping because they wanted to be paid in money or gunpowder, instead of food, in
1821; workers refusing to work more than an eight-hour day in
1840; and schoolboys on strike against too much homework in the 1880s.
But the first nationwide strike was in 1890, when workers at ports around the country took industrial action, initially in support of Australian unionists, according to Te Ara.
The year 1912 saw a six-month strike by gold miners in Waihi, eastern Waikato. On ‘‘Black Tuesday’’, striker Fred Evans was killed when a crowd of strike-breakers and police stormed the miners’ hall.
Evans is one of two people to have died during strike action in New Zealand.
A year later, in 1913, about
16,000 port and mine workers went on strike for six weeks. The government brought in strike-breakers, and there was fighting in the streets.
Industrial action by waterfront workers in
1951 saw the biggest strike in New Zealand history. It lasted 151 days, from February to July, and at its peak 22,000 watersiders and unionists were off work.
Strikes and lockouts were at their peak in the 1960s and 1970s, according to Te Ara.
A lockout is essentially the employer’s version of a strike. It is undertaken to try to make employees accept terms of employment or comply with employer demands. Employers may also lock out workers on health and safety grounds.
What about striking now?
In 2017, there were six work stoppages involving 421 employees, losing 370 persondays of work, according to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).
In 2016, those figures were three stoppages, 430 workers involved, 195 days lost and, in 2015, five stoppages, 1845 workers and 392.5 days lost.
There are a lot fewer strikes now than in the mid-2000s. For example, 2005 saw 60 stoppages involving 17,752 workers, 30,028 days of work gone and an estimated $4.8 million (at the time) of wages and salaries lost.
Going on strike is a ‘‘legitimate action used by parties to advance their bargaining aims’’, according to the Government’s Employment New Zealand website.
Possibly contrary to what many people think, workers don’t have to stop work completely to be on strike.
However, there is a range of criteria that have to be met for a strike to be legal. If they aren’t met, a court injunction can be sought to stop a strike.
The Employment NZ site also says ‘‘employers can’t discriminate against employees for taking part in a lawful strike’’. For a strike to go ahead, a union must hold a secret ballot. All members can participate, and a majority must be in favour for it to go ahead.
An employer doesn’t have to pay workers during a strike. If it’s a partial strike, there are conditions under which employers can reduce pay. They can suspend a striking worker and not pay them, but it doesn’t break their service.
Notice must be given to allow for planning and negotiation before a strike is about to go ahead.
But are strikes successful? The waterfront strike in 1951 eventually saw the wharfies admit defeat.
The outcome was the same in 1913, when the United Federation of Labour also admitted defeat.
The 1912 miners’ strike also fizzled out.
So some of the nation’s most notorious strikes weren’t a success.
But Council of Trade Unions president Richard Wagstaff feels that strikes are, in general, effective.
‘‘Counting successes, well, always industrial action in my memory results in a collective agreement being achieved eventually.
‘‘It serves a purpose of employers realising how serious employees are about the bargaining they are in, and it serves a purpose of letting them know that they can’t unilaterally just establish people’s conditions of work – it’s meant to be a twoway street.
‘‘In current disputes, or as you see now with the NZNO [NZ Nurses Organisation], the threat of industrial action has certainly led to a higher offer. Whether it’s sufficient or not, time will tell.
‘‘My view is that it often does lead to a better offer, and so that is the success of collective bargaining.
‘‘It’s one of those things that when you’re in bargaining everyone knows that this could break down and end in industrial action, so it does apply discipline to people to get on
with bargaining and find a resolution.’’
But unions do not set out to undertake industrial action when negotiations begin, he says.
‘‘Not just anyone will take industrial action at any time . . . there will be times where it doesn’t make any sense, and it’s not a good option for a range of ways.’’
For a strike to go ahead, a range of conditions is needed, including an expired collective agreement in an industry that has a union and an issue with the agreement.
‘‘Under our employment law, the only time you can take industrial action is in pursuit of a collective agreement, effectively,’’ Wagstaff says. ‘‘You can around health and safety, but effectively it’s around trying to negotiate a collective agreement.
‘‘In other countries, and in international law, there is also provision for working people to take a strike over wider civil and political issues. We don’t have that provision in New Zealand at the moment and we think it’s missing . . . in my view [having that provision] is a fundamental pillar of a democratic society.
‘‘However, we do have the ability in a workplace to take industrial action in pursuit of a collective agreement, and if in bargaining we don’t get anywhere, it is the last resort.
‘‘Employers also lock people out, of course.’’
In 99 per cent of cases, agreements are made without industrial action, he says.
The strength of unions is not as great as it was before the Employment Contracts Act, which was introduced in 1991.
That made it harder for workers to band together for better working conditions, he says.
‘‘It has weakened us significantly. We are slowly making our way back to having the kind of membership we have had in the past, and with that comes greater influence.’’
Peter Cullen, a partner at Cullen – the Employment Law Firm, says the success of strikes has been a mixed bag.
The type of industries affected by strikes often depends on whether or not it is state-funded.
‘‘The areas that are largely unionised are not areas where you are working for the owner of the business.’’
Unionisation is currently much lower than it was 30 years ago. Changes in technology have reduced the number of people working in once-unionised industries, as has casualisation of the workforce.
‘‘This means . . . unionisation only covers a percentage of the workforce.
‘‘All of that makes it harder to run strikes effectively. In a sense, yes, they [unions] have lost a bit of their bite.
‘‘They can be effective, it’s just a bit harder.’’
How does the public view striking?
‘‘Generally people see it as a problem if there’s a strike, and obviously there’s a dispute, so it’s a negative,’’ Wagstaff says.
‘‘I think, though, that we do need a bit of balance in forms of thinking about protest. It is actually a form of democratic protest and, if you want to live in a country where there are no strikes, you can go and live in North Korea.
‘‘Democracy involves a bit of pushing and pulling sometimes, and this is a way for people to express themselves and get a resolution after negotiation . . .
‘‘I think that people need to rethink their position on strikes as a whole. Of course you don’t want strikes happening all the time.
‘‘But they are actually a fundamental democratic right, and we need to respect them as that, and understand that they are just part of living in a democratic society, but also understand that we use our best endeavours to reach agreements without having to resort to them.’’
He believes people are generally unsympathetic to strikes because the narrative of employers was picked up publicly and there was a view that strikers were troublemakers.
‘‘That is totally unfair. Anyone going on strike wants the public to understand why they are doing it.’’
Cullen says the identity of those striking – and their cause – plays a large part in their success and in gaining public support.
‘‘Nurses are popular with people. That is a plus for public support. That is a plus for public sympathy.’’
If a strike is seen to be about safety, it is likely to gain more support. But if it is viewed as being purely about greed, the public wouldn’t get behind it as much.
How do strikes affect workplace relationships?
There appear to be negatives for both sides in a strike, regardless of outcome.
‘‘The problem they pose for employers is keeping their business going,’’ Cullen says.
‘‘If your union membership is low, that is OK – you can keep staff on – but that creates a division in the workforce.
‘‘It causes a divide no matter how you characterise the two sides. For the workers, the risk is that they may feel the employer may try to edge them out, despite laws against that.
‘‘That creates distrust and unease. That’s inevitable. That’s the price of a strike.’’
There appears to be a psychological impact on workers, too.
Research in the United States has found: ‘‘Strikers, compared to non-strikers, reported higher levels of depression, anxiety, and irritation, and lower levels of mental health. For strikers, engaging in higher levels of union activity during the strike was associated with better psychological well-being.’’