The 50,000 primary school teachers and principals and post-primary teachers went on strike this week, and it was about conditions as much as pay. It was not only the biggest teachers strike in New Zealand history, it was also the biggest strike of any kind (the second largest was the 1951 waterfront dispute, which had 22,000 people on strike at its height. Last year, a total of around 70,000 people went on strike, the highest number since the 1980s.
Times have changed, though. Unlike the five-month long 1951 waterfront strike, modern strikes last a single day. Moreover, it’s illegal for them to strike except during their bargaining period, and they cannot engage in wildcat or solidarity strikes, nor strikes for political reasons (they can still hold rallies for such things, of course—as long as they’re held on their own time).
Unions represent only about 17% of waged workers, most of which are white-collar jobs, especially in government agencies (which includes schools and hospitals). And therein lies the problem.
Government workers are at the whim of the government of the day, and for decades both major parties have pursued basically neoliberal economic policies that avoid public spending and encourage lower taxes and free markets. There are differences in priorities, with the National Party favouring business (big business in particular), and Labour favouring social spending (health and education in particular). Over the nine years that National was in government, it spent so little on education and health that the sectors had effective budget cuts. The current Labour-led coalition government had been trying to fix those issues, health and education in particular.
This raises an obvious question: Considering the virtual pay cut that teachers and nurses endured during National’s time in government, why are they striking now, with a sympathetic government, instead of when National was in power and causing the problems? The heads of the teachers’ unions gave disingenuous answers to that, but it’s nevertheless true that, publicly, the unions did nothing for nine years.
This matters because they’re wearing out the patience of New Zealanders. Overall, people have enormous sympathy for teachers, but if they keep striking—and secondary teachers are striking again next week—that patience will run out. And if New Zealanders then blame Labour for these strikes, then the unions will get to deal with a National-led government in 2020—and they will lose, just like always. Is that really the outcome they want?
To be clear, I don’t think the current government has gone far enough with teachers. I think they should have decided on a smaller budget surplus and instead invested the money in education and health. But Labour is sensitive to the charge they can’t handle the economy; even though the economy does better under Labour than under National, the myth (fuelled by Rightwing propaganda) persists that Labour Governments are profligate. That, combined with a neoliberal economic consensus (maybe Neoliberal Ultra-Lite, in the case of Labour…), it was probably inevitable that this government would go too slowly to fix the problems that the previous National government created.
However, it is what it is: The budget is focused on some sorely needed social spending (like on mental health, for example), and they’ve chosen to run a large budget surplus. But, who knows? If the current occupant of the USA’s White House manages to utterly destroy the world economy through his ignorance, then we may be glad that the current NZ Government has run surpluses. Teachers, however, may feel differently.
I hope teachers get what they want, and that it can happen sooner than next year. But unions have to think long and hard if their strike actions are really helping their goals, or only making a National Party-led government more likely in 2020. If they switch to rallying on their own time, rather than closing schools and inconveniencing parents, they may get away with it. But if they keep pushing so hard, they could end up making sure they’ll have to wait much longer for what they want.
The most successful unions work with management (in this case, the government) to find solutions. I don’t see that happening at the moment, and both sides seem to be digging in their heals. They need to find a way forward, but I just don’t se how continual strike action can possibly bring that about—but it could make things much worse.
Update: "Minister intervenes in teachers' pay dispute, calls forum" – RNZ (Radio New Zealand)
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