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August 28, 2018 last updated 11:30 ET
New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern delivering a speech at a dinner hosted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in London, April 19, 2018 (pool photo by Toby Melville via AP).
Public Worker Strikes in New Zealand Are Jacinda Ardern’s First Major Headache
The Editors Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018
Approximately 29,000 public school teachers in New Zealand went on a full-day strike on Aug. 15, demanding higher wages and improved working conditions. An estimated 400,000 schoolchildren were affected by the strike, which follows a similarly disruptive strike by nurses last month. These large-scale labor actions are a serious challenge for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s center-left coalition government, which was elected last year with union support. In an email interview, Grant Duncan, associate professor of politics at Massey University in New Zealand, discusses the political significance of the strikes.
WPR: What are the main issues driving the recent teachers’ and nurses’ strikes, and can we expect more actions in the future in other sectors as well?
Grant Duncan: The strikes are mainly about salaries, but also about workplace conditions. Teachers and nurses—as well as midwives, learning-support specialists, school bus drivers and others—are not paid at levels sufficient for raising a family, especially given the rising cost of housing in major cities. Nor do their salaries fully recognize the public value, workloads and social responsibilities of their jobs. In addition, long working hours, understaffing and excessive paperwork have all taken their toll.
Teachers in New Zealand also encounter complex social issues in the classroom. For example, they are often responsible for students with special needs or who speak little English, despite lacking specialized training. After class, they must continue working to meet burdensome assessment and reporting requirements. The situation is no better for nurses, who report long shifts and excessive caseloads, as well as safety concerns arising from aggressive patients and visitors. Patient care and safety are compromised as a result of overwork. These professionals feel frustrated that it is getting harder to do their jobs well, and their relatively modest incomes hardly compensate for the stress.
The Ministry of Education’s current offer of a pay increase is a substantial one: 14 percent over three years for new teachers and 6 percent for experienced teachers. However, the primary school teachers are demanding a 16 percent raise over two years, and the two sides have yet to reach a final agreement.
Similar problems can be found in New Zealand’s private sector, but since private sector workers are mostly not unionized, they have no collective bargaining rights and no right to strike. The poor working conditions of drivers and couriers have been in the news lately, for example. Economic growth in New Zealand has been driven largely by having more workers, including migrant workers, logging longer hours for low pay, and less by innovation and improved productivity.
WPR: What is the political significance of these strikes, and what are the fiscal and budgetary constraints that prevent the government from acceding to the unions’ demands?
Duncan: After nine years of a conservative government led by the National Party, the recent change to a center-left coalition government of the Labour and populist New Zealand First parties, supported by a confidence-and-supply agreement with the Green Party, evidently raised the hopes of public sector professionals. These workers tend to support Labour and the Greens, so the strikes are a thorn in the side of the Labour-led government.
But this is also a government whose fiscal commitments leave little room for raising incomes. In order to win election, Labour had to display fiscal responsibility. The party made a pre-electoral commitment with the Greens to place a cap on public spending and aim for debt reductions. The ratio of public debt to GDP in New Zealand is already low, compared with other countries, and is close to the government’s target of 20 percent. But Labour also promised to eliminate fees for tertiary education for new entrants, eventually increasing to three years of fully state-subsidized study. The coalition agreement with New Zealand First also came with hefty fiscal costs, which were devoted largely to regional development projects and to the overseas development assistance program, especially in the Pacific Islands.
All of this has left little in the budget for teachers and nurses. The government is solvent and could easily borrow, but refuses to do so, citing the need to “save for a rainy day.” A rainy day could be, for example, another destructive earthquake, a volcanic eruption in Auckland or the next global economic meltdown. Teachers and nurses might reply that, for them, it’s been raining for quite some time now.
Ardern received cheers and applause when she addressed striking teachers outside parliament last week. She agreed with the teachers’ calls for a better deal and shared their concerns for the well-being of children, but she asked for more time while the government and the education sector work together to address the problems.
WPR: How is the Ardern government otherwise managing its policy priorities, and how have its first months in office been received by its base and the wider public more generally?
Duncan: The 2017 election led to an unusual government outcome. The party that received the largest share of votes and seats in the proportional electoral system was the incumbent National Party, but it was unable to form a majority coalition on its own. The balance of power was held by New Zealand First, which eventually concluded an agreement with Labour, and not with the National Party. The three parties forming the new coalition government—Labour, New Zealand First and the Greens—have a clear majority in the House of Representatives, but must negotiate among their diverse priorities.
So far, the new prime minister, Labour’s Ardern, has conducted multiparty negotiations and led the government extremely well, managing at the same time to give birth to a baby girl and take six weeks of maternity leave. She has a remarkable ability to connect empathetically and sincerely with people in person and through social media, and her popularity remains high.
Collectively, the three parties of government are holding their majority in public opinion polls, but differences are bound to show, especially as the next election approaches—most likely in 2020—and the smaller parties seek to differentiate themselves in the eyes of voters. The opposition National Party is also holding its support base, hovering around the mid-40s in the most recent polls.
MORE WORLD POLITICS REVIEW
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PS She's a mother who was fucked by not a husband.
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August 28, 2018 last updated 11:30 ET
Public Worker Strikes in New Zealand Are Jacinda Ardern’s First Major Headache
The Editors Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018
Approximately 29,000 public school teachers in New Zealand went on a full-day strike on Aug. 15, demanding higher wages and improved working conditions. An estimated 400,000 schoolchildren were affected by the strike, which follows a similarly disruptive strike by nurses last month. These large-scale labor actions are a serious challenge for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s center-left coalition government, which was elected last year with union support. In an email interview, Grant Duncan, associate professor of politics at Massey University in New Zealand, discusses the political significance of the strikes.
WPR: What are the main issues driving the recent teachers’ and nurses’ strikes, and can we expect more actions in the future in other sectors as well?
Grant Duncan: The strikes are mainly about salaries, but also about workplace conditions. Teachers and nurses—as well as midwives, learning-support specialists, school bus drivers and others—are not paid at levels sufficient for raising a family, especially given the rising cost of housing in major cities. Nor do their salaries fully recognize the public value, workloads and social responsibilities of their jobs. In addition, long working hours, understaffing and excessive paperwork have all taken their toll.
Teachers in New Zealand also encounter complex social issues in the classroom. For example, they are often responsible for students with special needs or who speak little English, despite lacking specialized training. After class, they must continue working to meet burdensome assessment and reporting requirements. The situation is no better for nurses, who report long shifts and excessive caseloads, as well as safety concerns arising from aggressive patients and visitors. Patient care and safety are compromised as a result of overwork. These professionals feel frustrated that it is getting harder to do their jobs well, and their relatively modest incomes hardly compensate for the stress.
The Ministry of Education’s current offer of a pay increase is a substantial one: 14 percent over three years for new teachers and 6 percent for experienced teachers. However, the primary school teachers are demanding a 16 percent raise over two years, and the two sides have yet to reach a final agreement.
Similar problems can be found in New Zealand’s private sector, but since private sector workers are mostly not unionized, they have no collective bargaining rights and no right to strike. The poor working conditions of drivers and couriers have been in the news lately, for example. Economic growth in New Zealand has been driven largely by having more workers, including migrant workers, logging longer hours for low pay, and less by innovation and improved productivity.
WPR: What is the political significance of these strikes, and what are the fiscal and budgetary constraints that prevent the government from acceding to the unions’ demands?
Duncan: After nine years of a conservative government led by the National Party, the recent change to a center-left coalition government of the Labour and populist New Zealand First parties, supported by a confidence-and-supply agreement with the Green Party, evidently raised the hopes of public sector professionals. These workers tend to support Labour and the Greens, so the strikes are a thorn in the side of the Labour-led government.
But this is also a government whose fiscal commitments leave little room for raising incomes. In order to win election, Labour had to display fiscal responsibility. The party made a pre-electoral commitment with the Greens to place a cap on public spending and aim for debt reductions. The ratio of public debt to GDP in New Zealand is already low, compared with other countries, and is close to the government’s target of 20 percent. But Labour also promised to eliminate fees for tertiary education for new entrants, eventually increasing to three years of fully state-subsidized study. The coalition agreement with New Zealand First also came with hefty fiscal costs, which were devoted largely to regional development projects and to the overseas development assistance program, especially in the Pacific Islands.
All of this has left little in the budget for teachers and nurses. The government is solvent and could easily borrow, but refuses to do so, citing the need to “save for a rainy day.” A rainy day could be, for example, another destructive earthquake, a volcanic eruption in Auckland or the next global economic meltdown. Teachers and nurses might reply that, for them, it’s been raining for quite some time now.
Ardern received cheers and applause when she addressed striking teachers outside parliament last week. She agreed with the teachers’ calls for a better deal and shared their concerns for the well-being of children, but she asked for more time while the government and the education sector work together to address the problems.
WPR: How is the Ardern government otherwise managing its policy priorities, and how have its first months in office been received by its base and the wider public more generally?
Duncan: The 2017 election led to an unusual government outcome. The party that received the largest share of votes and seats in the proportional electoral system was the incumbent National Party, but it was unable to form a majority coalition on its own. The balance of power was held by New Zealand First, which eventually concluded an agreement with Labour, and not with the National Party. The three parties forming the new coalition government—Labour, New Zealand First and the Greens—have a clear majority in the House of Representatives, but must negotiate among their diverse priorities.
So far, the new prime minister, Labour’s Ardern, has conducted multiparty negotiations and led the government extremely well, managing at the same time to give birth to a baby girl and take six weeks of maternity leave. She has a remarkable ability to connect empathetically and sincerely with people in person and through social media, and her popularity remains high.
Collectively, the three parties of government are holding their majority in public opinion polls, but differences are bound to show, especially as the next election approaches—most likely in 2020—and the smaller parties seek to differentiate themselves in the eyes of voters. The opposition National Party is also holding its support base, hovering around the mid-40s in the most recent polls.
MORE WORLD POLITICS REVIEW
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