To the patients, students and whānau of those affected by the government’s dismantling of public services,
We condemn the suffering that has been inflicted on you by systematic neglect of the public services that you need. From patients dying in waiting rooms, to fire trucks breaking down on the way to emergencies, to children left without specialist support for their learning needs – all of this is a direct result of the government ignoring the pleas and warnings of public sector workers.
We condemn even more the fact that these attacks appear to be politically motivated. For the first time in decades, the Public Services Commissioner, Brian Roche, has been directly intervening in collective bargaining negotiations with public sector unions, enforcing the governments’ refusal to spend more on public services. “We need to create a sense of urgency, a war time focus every day as it were,” Brian said in a speech at Waikato University in February, “the public service is often at its best in times of crisis.” Tell that to the emergency departments operating at “critical overload”.
The government’s agenda in education is also politically-motivated. Education minister Erica Stanford has staffed her Ministerial Advisory Group on education reform with politically-motivated figures such as Elizabeth Rata, a member of the Charter Schools’ Authorisation Board. In one communication with Stanford, Rata described her goal as “ending decolonisation’s success”. Government attacks include cutting funding for te Reo Māori teacher training by $30 million. No wonder teachers, who have fought for so long to make the education system more equitable for their Māori students, are up-in-arms.
The government has acted in bad faith. They have repeatedly lied about public workers’ salaries and misrepresented their demands. This week PPTA president Chris Abercrombie spoke out about a planned meeting with Judith Collins, expressing frustration that her office first ruled out discussion of terms and conditions for an agreement at that meeting, and then cancelled the meeting altogether before an agenda could be submitted. The union had hoped to discuss issues including NCEA changes, artificial intelligence, and the government’s position on Palestine. To add insult to injury, Collins is now lying about the content of this planned meeting, implying the union was only interested in talking about the latter.
Knowing that industrial action is one of the few tools that workers have to fight back against such mistreatment, the government has introduced harsh pay penalties for workers taking partial strike action and has publicly considered ways to further limit public sector workers’ right to strike. These limitations are unfair and unwarranted.
To everyone missing out on access to public services, including the more than 37,000 patients who have been waiting more than the target period for treatment, the good news is that public sector workers are fighting for you. Their demands include safe staffing levels in hospitals, safe and functional equipment for firefighters, and fair pay rates that reflect the importance of this work and ensure that we can recruit and retain the workers we need across the public sector. If they win these demands, we will all be better off.
The government values profit above the needs and rights of working New Zealanders. From fast-tracking environmentally damaging projects, to gutting gender pay equity, to dismantling Te Tiriti protections, to restricting voting rights, this government has repeatedly insulted the people of Aotearoa. Striking workers are demonstrating that we do not need to take this mistreatment lying down.
Workers have a responsibility to hold the government to account and ensure that public money is being spent for the good of the public, especially when money is tight. Workers are simply not earning enough to pour extra money into tax breaks for the wealthy, subsidising fossil fuel businesses, or making war. While starving public services, the government has announced that it intends to more than double military spending over the next eight years. They are also pouring money into Rocket Lab, a US-owned company which develops military and intelligence technology for customers such as the militaries of the USA and Israel. This is taxpayer money funding genocide. Not healthcare. Not education. Genocide.
At a recent PPTA conference a group of teachers presented a paper called “peace is union business”. This is what they had to say:
The connections with peace as union business with our ‘core business’ are many. Working people need welfare not warfare. Investment in the latter can divert funds away from children’s education towards military participation that contributes to an uncertain world for those very children’s future. This is not just a matter of ‘wars in other countries’ – the inconvenient truth is that as members of the international community we are all implicated.
While immediate demands for safe staffing, adequate resources and fair pay are understandably front of mind for striking workers, it is admirable that so many are also taking a stand for global peace and justice.
To all who rely on these public sector workers – the whānau who rely on their support, the patients receiving care at their hands, the parents entrusting them with their children each week – now is the time to publicly, visibly show your support and refute the toxic narratives of the government.
To public sector workers we say: victory to your struggle!
