Ross Wilson speech to Green Party Conference, June 2005

I welcome the opportunity to once again bring warm greetings from the Council of Trade Unions. It is also a very important opportunity to acknowledge the excellent working relationship which has developed between the CTU and the Green MPs and Parliamentary staff over the past six years.

It has been a period of rebuilding the union movement. By organising and building union density we are building the strength and influence, both industrially and politically, to pursue the economic and social justice agendas we share.

We take pride in the fact that, with a total affiliated membership of more than 300,000 union members, the CTU is the largest democratic non-government organisation in New Zealand, and we take seriously our role as a voice for working people.

Our work at a political level is not only important, and our right as an organisation of working New Zealanders. It is also our duty.

There are those who have always suggested that unions should not be involved in politics. But of course unions have a vital role to play in a democracy. It is no coincidence that unions are targeted when democracy is overthrown or, more insidiously, undermined. And it was almost 100 years ago that the union movement took steps to establish a political voice; the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Much has happened since then (good and bad) and, thanks to some excellent organising work by people like Rod, working with unions, we now have MMP. And that means that our role as a union central organisation has also changed.

We develop our own policies as an independent organisation and, where they require legislative or government action, we work with political parties to implement them.

And yes it is true that we have a close working relationships with the Labour Party, and some of our unions are affiliated to it. But the CTU is not affiliated to any political party. We take pride in the working relationship we have with the Green Party, and we endeavour to develop positive relationships with other parties, such as the Progressives and the Maori Party.

Union rights are democratic rights. The rights to organize in unions, to bargain collectively, and to organize politically are human rights guaranteed by international law. But their recognition and implementation are dependant upon democratic Government.

We want to be part of a social movement unionism working with other organizations in the community to build a political constituency for social justice.

And we want to work with the Green Party, and the wider environmental and social justice movement you belong to. We have a lot of common policies and objectives.

At your conference in 2002 I acknowledged the vital political support and advocacy which Green MPs provided to our joint cause on a range of issues; ACC, the Employment Relations Bill, the International Treaties Bill, the Anti-Terrorism Bill, Paid Parental leave and minimum wage legislation, the Social Security Amendment, and many others.

Since then we have continued to work closely on a number of important issues which are bringing benefits to not only union members but working people generally.

The Employment Relations Act amendments were important to us. We accepted in 2000 that the ERA was a modest measure which, although a big step forward from the Employment Contracts Act, was not going to be effective in promoting collective bargaining against employer hostility and legally devised strategies to undermine it.

In practice our expectations were met over the following few years. Many employers, and their lawyers, did their best to undermine it and very one of the amendments which were finally passed late last year with Green support, were required to meet weaknesses which had been highlighted in practice by bad faith employer behaviour.

The Holidays Act 2003 brought significant benefits to all workers; penal rates on public holidays, better sick pay and bereavement/tangihanga leave entitlements and a minimum 4 weeks annual leave from 2007.

And I should also mention the Health & Safety in Employment Act amendments which came into effect in 2003.

So I want to take the opportunity to say thank you to the Green MPs in Parliament for your support on the many issues where we share common objectives. In particular can I acknowledge the work of Sue Bradford as Green spokesperson on these very important legislative gains, and for her work and support on the Select Committee, and publicly, in our common cause.

It is too easy for people to forget that, without Green Party support, the Labour-Progressive Government would not have been able to pass any of this legislation. Most notably neither United Future nor N Z First voted for any of these measures.

One of the key union values is loyalty and, as a General Election approaches, we are taking steps to remind union members of your support for these vital legislative measures.

Our first election leaflet, which has a first print run of 100,000 copies, makes that very clear.

We want our co-operative relationship to continue.

We want to continue to work with you on other aspects of our complementary agendas. There are many areas and I will just mention a few:

Starting at the workplace there is the challenge to build more democratic, creative and safer workplaces where the untapped innovation and potential of workers can be unleashed.

This is, of course, now a universal view. Peter Cassells, a key figure in the Irish national partnership process was in Wellington last week. The recent report of the Irish Forum on the Workplace of the Future (which Peter chaired) noted that the workplace of the future must be involved and participatory and that:
In such a culture, the management style is open and participative rather than hierarchical, the contribution of all employees is valued, and new ideas are welcomed and rewarded."

The 2002 amendments to the HSE Act, which the Green Party actively supported, included a system of elected Health and Safety Reps in New Zealand workplaces. Through a CTU/ACC partnership we have trained almost 19,000 Reps over the past two years. The CTU is now the largest, and I believe the best, health and safety training organization in the country.

This very successful programme provide an excellent model for broader worker participation programmes, and as well as making a very real contribution to workplace health and safety, the participation is in itself a very important contribution to the transformation of New Zealand workplaces.

And that is why we are, with funding from the Tertiary Education Commission and support from Business New Zealand, piloting a Learning Representative scheme based on the successful UK model.

The concept is similar to the Health and Safety Rep but with a focus on learning and training needs.

We are also developing an adult education programme which will engage workers in workplaces and industry groups on ideas and innovation which might contribute to improved workplace productivity and, in particular to encourage upskilling and workplace based learning.

We want to create participative workplaces where workers' contributions are respected and valued, and where the family and community responsibilities are acknowledged. Work-life balance is a key to better productivity.

Which brings me to our shared objective of promoting environmentally and socially sustainable economic growth. And can I acknowledge the very important voice of Jeanette Fitzsimons in the national debates on these issues.

Some of you will be aware of the Growth Culture research undertaken by the Growth & Innovation Advisory Board, of which I am a member. In essence it showed that people distrust a top-down agenda, distrust big business, and are seeking quality of life outcomes, for all, not just economic growth. More specifically there are three findings I want to highlight:
- New Zealanders overwhelmingly put quality of life, environment, education and health services over other values such as personal wealth and the level of economic growth
- Their strongest influencers are their workplace leaders and families
- They reject the "burning platform" approach; the predictions of pending crisis are not seen as a motivator
This tells me that we are on the right track in moving to engage in a workplace and community discussion with the objective of building a consensus about our economic and social future. The evidence suggests that New Zealanders support a sustainable development strategy, but want to have that discussion in their homes and workplaces with people they trust, and won't be much influenced by scenarios predicting dire economic doom.

We also want to continue to work with you on social policies which provide, as a human right, the social environment, housing, health, and education that give everyone a real opportunity to succeed. Social investment is crucial to our future well-being.

Your campaigning work in support of health and safety has been very important. Sue Kedgeley's work with timber workers and others to publicise the hugely increased levels of exposure to toxic substances (including dioxins, PCPs) in our daily lives has highlighted the need for a greater attention to occupational health issues. And the Ministerial Advisory committee on work-related gradual process, disease and infection (which Sue initiated in 2001) has now reported and will help to focus on the under-recognition of occupational disease.

And I am sure that Laila, as I do, will acknowledge the strong Green support for the health workers fair pay campaigns which helped to ensure the long overdue recognition of the value of this vital professional and caring work.

And there are also the international and trade issues. We share the concern about human rights issues, and acknowledge the strong advocacy of Keith Locke, in particular.

At an international level we are also working through our international union centre (representing 150 million union members worldwide) to try and change the international economic order and trading rules -the current model of globalisation - so that there is a fair distribution of natural and social resources for all people on our planet. Meanwhile we continue to try and influence our Government, in its work with the imperfections of the current multi-lateral system, and the bargaining imbalances in the bi-lateral negotiations to achieve outcomes which ensure fair trade. In practice we are usually struggle between principle and pragmatism. And of course the big issue at the moment, and for the future, is China.

All of this work is important, and we believe at the CTU that the work of the center-left parties over the past six years has established a credible social democratic agenda for social and economic development which has, and will in the future, benefit all New Zealanders.

And it stands in stark contrast to what a Brash-led Government would re-visit on us if elected at the General Election, now only a few weeks or months away.

What little policy National has released clearly points to a return to the failed "market" strategies of the 1990s. Tax cuts leading to cuts in public services.

In the industrial relations area it will be back to union-bashing and low wage strategies.

The National Party has a serious credibility challenge in persuading New Zealanders that it is really concerned about improving wages. They have been almost hysterical in their opposition to our 5% campaign, and of course their record in government says it all.

The low wage strategies of the last National Government included a freeze of the adult minimum wage at $7 per hour for 3 years (and $4.20 for workers under 20). We can all take pride in the fact that through our joint efforts the minimum wage is up more than 35% to $9.50. Don Brash is, of course, on record advocating the complete abolition of the minimum wage.

There is no doubt that, as well as causing widespread hardship, that low minimum wage contributed, along with the 1990s Employment Contracts Act, to an entrenched low wage culture.

Reinstating an Employment Contracts Act, as National has promised to do, will once again encourage employers to focus on reducing wage costs instead of building value and skill.

This will inevitably accelerate the departure of more skilled workers to Australia and other countries. New Zealand already has more skilled workers employed abroad than any other country in the OECD.

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. Now that's the dilemma we have got.

To improve our workplace productivity we must make an investment in skills and education. If we make an investment in skills are we simply providing the training for the Australian labour market?

And it is no solution to offer tax cuts. It is increases in their gross wage that workers are interested in, rather than cuts in taxes which their experience has shown will result in reduced investment in such vital areas as education, industry training, and health care.

The National Party proposal to introduce a 90 day period during which a new worker can be sacked without reason is a charter for employer exploitation and discrimination.

Don Brash is on record as saying that has said that this draconian step is required to reduce the "risk" for employers. Included in the categories of employees he considers to be "risky" are people who may be "too young", "too old" or "too brown". This seems to me to be a disgraceful signal that age and racial discrimination would be ok under a Brash Government. If a genuine and fair probation period is required then it already exists section 67 of the Employment Relations Act.

What Brash is proposing will strip away all legal redress (bearing in mind that the common law action for wrongful dismissal has been abolished in New Zealand) for about 150,000 New Zealanders starting a new job each year.

National has also signalled that it will gut the new Holidays Act and not only abolish extra pay for working public holidays, but also reduce holiday pay and sick pay below a workers normal earnings.

Employers will also be permitted to pressure workers to trade away their 4th week of annual leave. Well, in my view they are more likely to push them across the Tasman where all workers have enjoyed a minimum of 4 weeks annual leave for more than a decade.

But perhaps the most puzzling part of the National Party industrial relations policy is the commitment to amend the health and safety laws to strip the 19,000 workplace health and safety representatives of their important role in workplace health and safety.

How can we talk about modern participative, and innovative workplaces, if a major political party doesn't even see a role for employee participation in activities to improve their own health and safety at work?

The CTU doesn't try and tell union members how to vote, but we certainly see it as our responsibility to make a comparative analysis of the election policies of political parties. And I would like nothing more than to be able to report that we had a national political consensus on workplace and economic development issues.

What I will in fact be reporting is that the National Party appears determined to put ideology ahead of national interest; a determination to see unions as a class enemy rather than a partner in social and economic development.

The National Party clearly hopes to win some votes with its union-bashing strategies. There will no doubt be some votes in it, but probably very few.

I think most thinking New Zealanders will see the value of the high road strategies to a high skill, high value, high wage economy, when presented with the choice of returning to the low road of the low skill, low wage strategies of the National-led Governments of the 1990s.

It is becoming increasingly clear that National has chosen to pick up where it left off in the 1990s.

The CTU does not seek out conflict but I can assure you that I will do everything I can to lead the CTU unions, and the 300,000 union members we represent, to take every action possible to prevent the return of another Employment Contracts Act and neo-liberal policies of the 1990s.

And over the next few months you have an important challenge in presenting your Party as a Coalition Partner for Labour. In many areas we share a common constituency and share common goals.

And can I acknowledge your wisdom in selecting Luci Highfield for your list. Luci is a very hard working and very competent and lawyer and unionist with an unswerving commitment to the people she represents. Sue will know the crucial role that Luci played in lobbying for, and finessing, the vulnerable worker provisions in the 2004 ERA amendments. My only regret on her election will be that we shall lose a valuable resource and leader from the union movement...but I know her commitment and cause will not change.

We have got a very difficult election campaign ahead of us. There was an adverse poll yesterday. It is a timely signal. As the saying goes, a week is a long time in politics. We have some work to do and we know that the issues are broader than tax cuts.

I strongly believe that the work of the parties in, and supporting, Government over the past six years have laid the foundation for a fairer and greener New Zealand.

The choice for New Zealanders is whether we move forward with that investment approach to economic and social development, or whether we go back to the 1990s with an Act leader in drag.

So lets now jointly commit to working to elect a center-left Government to continue the programme in which the Green Party has played, and will continue to play, a crucial role.