Voters choose cooperative route to high skill economy

Voters seem to have chosen, by a narrow margin to continue to invest in a cooperative, constructive future that can take us to a high skill, high wage economy Ross Wilson told the NZEI Annual Meeting on 25 September. His speech follows:Greetings from the CTU Officers and staff and the 34 other unions and more than 300,000 union members who make up the CTU family, and thank you for the opportunity to speak at this very important occasion.
And congratulations to the teachers and principals who are being honoured in the Institute's professional awards, a tradition of NZEI Te Riu Roa which highlights the union's very important professional role.
I would like to particularly mention Caroline Mareko, who has also made a big contribution to the work of our CTU Komiti Pasefika over many years.
Can I also thank Lynn and Peter, and staff for your solid contributions to the work of the CTU during the past year.

And I acknowledge Colin's strong and competent leadership as President during another very active period for the Institute.

I would also like to acknowledge the support you provided to the striking Tongan Teachers and public sector workers. The President of the teachers union, Finau Tutone, is very appreciative of the support from New Zealand.

It is good to see the Special Education settlement recently and the recognition in the new salary scale of the very important work these field staff do to help children with special needs get a quality education.

The AGM is a time to reflect on the past and plan for the future and I will take the opportunity to comment on a few issues which relate to NZEI Te Riu Roa in your wider role in the union movement and society.

As I was reflecting yesterday on what I might say today, I decided I should talk about the challenges we face from globalisation, and in particular the potential impact we face with the emergence of China as a major economic power.

I do so for two reasons. Firstly, because this is a major challenge we face as a nation and it is important that we discuss publicly how we respond to it as a major national issue and secondly, because education is a vital key to the strategy we believe, as the CTU, should be pursued as a matter of urgent national interest.

We have of course just had a General Election. It was probably the most exciting and interesting campaign we have had for many years, and Election night on television was as exciting as any drama.

But in the whole of the campaign there was very little, if any debate, about the challenge of China, and how the policies of the political parties address it, or fail to, as the case may be.

Our future lies in building a high value, high skill economy which recognises the value of skills and knowledge and treats labour as a valuable asset.

It is now recognised that the Employment Contract Act era of the 1990s encouraged employers to focus on reducing labour costs rather than investing in skill development and technology to improve productivity.

The result is that our wages here are low enough to drive skilled workers offshore, particularly to Australia, but not low enough to ever compete with China.

In April I visited several factories including a modern Shanghai tannery Richina Leather, which has a New Zealand connection. It is a modern plant with working conditions producing high quality products with a unionised workforce. But the essential point is that the salary bill for the 22 expatriate Australian and New Zealand managers employed by Shanghai Richina is more than the total wage bill for the 2,500 Chinese employees.

We can't compete on wages. The impact of China on all countries, including ours, is going to be immense over the coming years.

It is estimated that even developing countries like Bangladesh and Indonesia will each lose up to a million manufacturing jobs to cheaper labour options in China.

At the CTU we have asserted the right to be involved, with Government and business, in the development and delivery of the economic and social development strategies with the objective of creating more and better jobs for our current union members, and their children and grandchildren.

Now is the time, when we have good economic growth and relatively full employment, to make the investment in education and skill development, to work on improving workplace performance and organization, to improve workforce participation, and to create decent jobs.

And we have made some good progress on this work.

? The workplace health and safety rep training organization the CTU established jointly with ACC only two years ago is now the largest, and the best, health and safety training organization in New Zealand. By the end of this year we will have trained almost 15,000 workplace health and safety representatives, and in that two-year period the workplace fatality rate in New Zealand workplaces has fallen by 60%.

? We have launched a Workplace Learning Rep project based on the concept that workers are more comfortable discussing their learning needs (whether basic literacy or numeracy, or life-long learning) with a worker adviser, than with their boss. In developing this programme we are able to build on our Health and Safety Rep experience.

? A Business NZ?CTU dialogue on productivity has blossomed into a full blown tripartite initiative to improve productivity in New Zealand workplaces. It is worth noting that a recent OECD report identified improving productivity as the most important priority for the New Zealand economy.

? CTU unions have committed to working with Government and employers on skill and industry development agendas and we have re-structured into CTU industry groups for the purpose of this engagement.

? And very importantly, the ERA amendments which come into effect late last year will make it a lot more difficult for those employers who have persisted in maintaining a 1990s ECA mindset to continue playing old-fashioned industrial relations games. The ERA provides a framework and an opportunity for modern good faith relationships between employers and unions and, in order to build the productive workplaces of the future, we need to get on with it.

And it is important that we do lift our wages and salaries even to retain our skills. We have an average 25% wage gap between Australia and here; a gap which was created during the 1990s. What is the effect of that? The effect is that if you want better wages for your skills you only have to cross the Tasman and you'll get a job that will pay 25% and more than you are paid here.

New Zealand already has more skilled workers employed abroad than any other country in the OECD.

It was very disappointing that there was very little political debate about these vitally important issues during the election campaign. Business commentator Rod Oram has described them as the "real issues" facing business, rather than the ones they complain about constantly.

But the comparative strategies were there in stark relief:

? Investment in our future through increasing investment in education, training, infrastructure, housing and health, or tax cuts which would have inevitably also meant investment cuts.

? Continue to build wages and good faith relationships with the Employment Relations Act or return to an Employment Contracts Act model with its inevitable focus on reducing wages and conditions.

? Continue to build modern participative workplaces with Health & Safety Reps and Learning Reps or return to the 1990s model of the boss knows best.

It is this sort of analysis that led the CTU to distribute an analysis of the voting records and key policies of political parties and to encourage union members to play an active role in the Election Campaign. The result was probably a higher level of activism by union members than we have seen before in what was possibly the most important election of our generation.

The result is a very narrow margin, subject to special votes, in favour of a continuation of the current policies.

For the CTU it is a huge relief that we can continue the strategies, programmes and campaigns that we have been developing. We have just launched the Learning Rep programme, and we are about to launch a workshop programme which will take the challenge of skill development and productivity out into New Zealand workplaces.

From our Runanga involvement in the Hui Taumata, we have also developed a very exciting workshop programme targeted at Maori workers in the seafood, food manufacturing and tourism industries. This is a project which will be led by our Runanga and has the potential to not only make a major contribution to the skill development of the Maori workforce, but also to develop uniquely Maori education and organising programmes as a partnership within the CTU.

And of course the election result means that it is business as usual for NZEI Te Riu Roa. You can put the prospect of another bitter debate about bulk funding behind you and focus on the positive things like reduced class sizes in new entrant classes and extended access to free early childhood education.

I hope you have an enjoyable and successful conference.