Thousands of government department employees to vote on 'co-ordinated' strike action
Employees at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment protest in Hamilton in 2015. Union workers at the Government department, along with thousands of Inland Revenue employees, are set to vote on strike action on Monday.
More than 4000 public servants will vote on industrial action on Monday, in what the union representing state workers is describing as "co-ordinated strike action" across two major government departments.
Members of the Public Services Association (PSA) at Inland Revenue (IRD) and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (Mbie) will be balloted on whether to take two 2-hour strikes, which would take place in July.
Although the action is relatively low-level, it comes amid threats of strike action among teachers and nurses, building pressure on the Labour-led Government, which has close connections to the union movement.
Auckland nurses strike outside Auckland City Hospital in April. The Government appears braced for a recent $500 million pay offer to nurses to be rejected. (File photo)
PSA national secretary Glenn Barclay said the co-ordinated nature of the action sent an indirect message to the Government, but the main target was to the two government departments.
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"People might dismiss it as not being very much, but for the workers involved it is a big deal to take the action that they've taken," Barclay said, with many of the affected workers coming from call centres, on lower salaries than many other state servants.
Off-duty nurses in Nelson protest before a vote on strike action in April. (File photo)
"For them, it's a big deal, and it's also a big deal because we haven't had industrial action in the public service for a long time."
While the details of the offers made to unions representing workers at either department have not been made public, Barclay said Mbie was likely to claim it was offering a 3.2 per cent increase targeting lower paid workers.
The PSA says the offer mixed up across the board increases with changes to performance-based systems that were "deeply dis-spriting" for workers who were being given targets that many were struggling to meet.
Public Service Association national secretary Glenn Barclay says there is growing frustration among public sector workers at what is happening in some organisations.
The PSA says IRD's offer did not take account of cost of living increases.
Barclay said as well as protracted pay negotiations, which had been underway since late 2017, there was growing frustration among workers at what was happening in the organisations.
A major technology overhaul at IRD was "a mess", which was making life difficult for affected staff, Barclay said.
National's workplace relations spokesman Scott Simpson says industrial unrest is increasing under the new Government, and could get even worse.
"They [IRD] have got into job change and job loss before really embedding the technology change, before knowing how the change was going to pan out for people."
Meanwhile Mbie was frustrating the PSA's attempts to recruit members.
"Given that Mbie is the old Department of Labour, you would hope Mbie would be an exemplar employer, and it's not turning out to be the case."
A spokesman for State Services Minister Chris Hipkins declined to comment on the state of public sector pay negotiations while they were underway.
No one from the Government, Mbie or IRD has commented on the state of negotiations with PSA.
A spokesman for IRD said the organisation was aware of the strike ballot and was "planning for all eventualities".
MBIE said in a brief statement that while collective bargaining was underway with the PSA "we can't speculate on the outcome".
A spokesman for State Services Minister Chris Hipkins said it would be inappropriate to comment on the state of pay negotiations while they were underway.
If a majority of PSA members at either workplace vote to go ahead with the strike action, all members would be expected to take part in the action, Barclay said.
National's workplace relations spokesman Scott Simpson said industrial unrest was increasing under the new Government, something he claimed would be worse under broader employment law changes that were being planned.
"Labour's made big promises to the unions, raising expectations so much that we're seeing more industrial action than we have in decades, including from bus drivers to port workers and now potentially vast chunks of the core public service.
The New Zealand Nurses Organisation is expected to announce in the coming days whether to accept a sweetened pay offer which the district health boards controversially announced publicly on May 28.
The Beehive appears braced for the $500 million offer to be rejected, possibly as soon as Monday.
- Stuff
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