Ross Wilson speech to PSA congress, Nov 2006

PSA Congress
Wellington 15 November 2006

Ross Wilson
President
N Z Council of Trade Unions

It is my honour and pleasure to once again bring warm greetings to your Congress from the other unions within the Council of Trade Unions.

And I want to begin by commending the PSA leadership for the innovative and forward looking thinking which has gone into the preparation for this important Congress.

I found the Fresh Perspectives and Demos papers stimulating. I feel very proud that this innovative thinking about the future of our public service is being led by our public service union.

And I am very encouraged by the high level of complementarity between those discussion papers and our CTU strategy and work programme. But I shouldn’t be surprised because the PSA leadership has been an important part of both processes.

The PSA has, since I have been President, challenged us to adopt a social partnership approach, with Government and business, to the economic and social development challenges we face as a nation. You have pioneered the way with the Partnership for Quality Agreements, and I have no doubt that the third such agreement you are currently finalizing will be equally forward looking.

The Demos report identifies 5 “critical uncertainties” that New Zealand will have to face in the future:

• Forging a distinctive model of economic growth
• Maori social and economic development
• Community cohesion in the face of growing diversity
• Stewarding the environment and securing enough energy:
• Public health and an ageing population

And your conference papers put a strong case for moving further away from a model of public services driven by process and ideology towards workplaces where workers have a real voice, - in partnership with service users and their communities -giving voice to workers and citizens.

I frequently make the public statement that the CTU, with more than 350,000 affiliated union members, is the largest democratic organization in New Zealand.  I do so because it helps to define that important civil society role.

We know how important that role has been over the past seven years in building our influence in Government, and the legislative and policy gains which have resulted.

And we know from the experience of the previous decade how quickly those gains can be destroyed.

So it is important that we do our very best to articulate and promote the role that we see for unions, as a voice for working people, in modern society.

One way of putting our case is to present, as evidence, the successful small country models where unions have played a crucial role in economic and social development.

That is an approach which we have consistently taken over the past few years in pointing to successful small country models, (Ireland, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Finland and to some extent Singapore), where a “social partnership” approach has been identified as a key component of transformational economic and social change.

And that is why the Minister and Secretary of Labour, the CEO of Business NZ and I made a brief visit to Helsinki and Dublin in June.

The key things I learned from that visit were:

• In a globalised world of minimal protection small countries have to develop a national strategy. Unlike larger economies we have to make national  strategic choices about survival in a competitive world.
• In small countries the task of building consensus around shared problem definition and solutions is comparatively easy (although it doesn’t feel it sometimes). In Finland and Ireland there is a strong level of alignment between elected politicians, senior government officials, and business and union leaders in their understanding of national economic priorities and strategy
• A social partnership approach, with its problem solving culture, is acknowledged as a key contributor to the economic success of those countries.
• Both countries see workforce development, industrial relations and labour market policies as a key component of economic policy with workforce development, possibly more importantly than technological development, as a key contributor to the next phase of economic development.
• More participative and democratic workplaces, and the learning networks which develop, are seen as a vital contributor at workplace level.

We are now at the stage where there is a confluence of a number of factors:

• the CTU now has a number of Projects at various stages of development all based on worker education underpinning more active worker participation in economic and social development (e.g. Health & Safety Rep training, Learning Rep, WPEP and HANGI). PSA involvement in this has been great as we saw with our support for your seminars on productivity issues in the public sector a few months ago
• there are a significant number of areas of engagement on a tripartite basis across skills, productivity, and other areas
• The PSA is engaged in discussions about a third phase partnership agreement with Government, which may have a stronger political dimension than previously. The tripartite framework in the Health Sector is also undergoing a reassessment.
• the Partnership Resource Centre is established
• there are several proposals for union projects at an industry level on workforce development (e.g. FIDA, Food and Beverage)
• the next stage for the Workplace Productivity Agenda is under active consideration including options of a fund for innovation projects
• the ‘economic transformation’ agenda is broadening the scope of economic development
• a more active approach by Government in this term to model tripartite engagement

Against that background the CTU National Council has indicated a wish to develop a stronger push for a higher profile and visual coherence for the social partnership work we are engaged in.

So if we look at the challenge which the Demos 5 critical future uncertainties present to us I can confidently say that we are  addressing these issues in our work programme:

• We are actively working with Government and business to build a high value high skill  high wage economy, and which we would support being sustainably developed from our natural resources, the skills, knowledge, and innovation  of our workforce, and providing decent work and workplaces for all.

• A vital part of that work is Maori social and economic development. Since the Hui Taumata last year we have been working in partnership as part of the Hui Taumata Task Force modelling some exciting initiatives to support Maori workforce development.

• Unions also have an important role in building on our union values of tolerance and inclusiveness. Unions are about building collective activity and communities, while at the same time respecting and celebrating diversity.

• And it is those strategies of sustainable social and economic development which will respect and protect our environment, and ensure that we can deliver the high quality health and aged care we all have the right to expect.

The role of the State sector in all of this is crucial, and  it is satisfying to see such a strong synergy between our CTU vision for a high value high skill high wage  and  your vision for a democratic, empowered, collaborative and  innovative public service; the “new professionalism” the Demos report describes.

Whether it is the private sector or the public sector the same drivers are relevant to working smarter; building leadership and capability, investing in people and skills, encouraging innovation and use of technology, and productive workplace cultures and job design.

You can feel very proud that you are leading the debate in New Zealand on the public service model which will not only meet our national needs, but provide decent work for public sector workers.

Achieving that objective will, as you know, require a lot of hard work and active participation by delegates and members.

So I am very pleased to see that a key part of your Fresh Perspectives strategy is to build that delegate capacity. This is crucial.

As your congress papers say, you, as delegates, are the “heart of the PSA”.

Your training and development, and your leadership and professionalism in the workplace, are a vital part of the overall strategy.

I want to conclude by reflecting on a recent event where union leadership and solidarity at all levels played a crucial role in winning an important dispute, as well as lifting our credibility as a union movement to a new high.

The Progressive Enterprise Dispute highlighted the hugely influential role that an active and united union movement can play, both in supporting vulnerable workers with a just claim, but also in safeguarding important human rights guaranteed to us by international law.

These 590 low paid members of the National Distribution Union and the Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union were locked out for almost 4 weeks by Australasia’s largest private employer, Woolworths Australia. This is a company which recently announced a 24.3% increase in its profit to $A1.01 billion, which pays its Chief Executive a salary of $8.5 million, and which pays its Australian distribution workers almost double what our workers were asking for in their claims.

These are workers on marginal wages with families, mortgages, and other responsibilities. Many are Maori and Pacific workers. It is no exaggeration to say that the company’s strategy was to starve them into submission.

In many situations the workers would have no practical alternative but to submit. And that is why your support, and the support of thousands of other working New Zealanders, gave them the choice of continuing to fight for pay parity between the sites.

There is no doubt that the tremendous response from unions, and I am aware of the very organized PSA effort which swung into action, won this dispute for those workers. So can I take the opportunity to thank you all for your moral and financial support.  Your effort has been part of a union movement working together as brothers and sisters in a way which made me feel very proud as CTU President.

But it is a salutary  warning that there is still a lot of hostility in the business community. Union rights may be guaranteed by ILO conventions as human rights – rights to organize, promotion of collective bargaining – but in reality this is a hotly contested area.

There was a lot of symbolism and psychology in this dispute. The New Zealand employers and politicians stood aside while the large Aussie corporate took us on. We had to win, and we did. Let us be under no illusion that business and political interests were watching the Progressive dispute very closely.

The right to organize and work collectively as unions is not just a workplace right. It is also important at a political level as a countervailing force to corporate power.
 
And for those of you who weren’t in the movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and to remind the rest of us, let me just recall that one of the important lessons we learned from the 1990s was that as unions we have to fight politically for our role as institutions of democratic society.

We have to increase the public awareness that a political attack on unions is an attack on democratic society.

Unions have a vital political role in giving voice to members, and as a movement in giving voice to working people and their families.
And don’t  let anybody suggest that unions shouldn’t be political.

It was the well know  international financier George Soros who said not so long ago:
“Perhaps the greatest threat to freedom and democracy in the world today comes from the formation of unholy alliances between government and business.  This is not a new phenomenon.  It used to be called fascism…..  The outward appearances of the democratic process are observed, but the powers of the state are diverted to the benefit of private interests.”

I’m not saying that business should not have any role in democratic society. But I am saying that unions have a very important role as institutions of civil society which have too often been deliberately ignored in our country.

We have a democratic right to work together collectively to promote and protect our interests and the PSA has strongly asserted your right to do that.

And that is why you were active in the political debates around the last General Election. You had a vital interest in the stark choice. Vote for continued investment in public services, or vote for public sector job cuts to fund across the board tax cuts.

So can I finish by congratulating you all, as the leadership of your union at all levels, and assure you that we will continue to work closely to ensure that we maximize our effectiveness and credibility as a union movement, and as important institutions of democratic society.

And I want to reserve a final special word for that remarkable man who is to be awarded life membership today, Kiwhare Mihaka. Others will speak to the huge contribution Kiwhare has made to the PSA. I would like to acknowledge the leadership role he has played in the CTU as  kaumatua. His steady hand and personal support has been  very important as we have worked our way through difficult processes like the foreshore and seabed legislation and the development of our Ture Whakawhanaungatanga Agreement. Thank you Kiwhare; the rare conferring of PSA life membership in recognition of your leadership and wisdom is well deserved.