The Labour Party is concerned Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche is acting in an “overly politicised way”, as teachers and health workers prepare for a ‘mega strike’ later this week.
It comes as the Public Service Commission started running Facebook advertisements yesterday encouraging people to find out more about the strike action happening.
The ads contained information about previous offers that had been made to nurse practitioners, senior nurses and graduate nurses.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins believes the commission is overstepping, and Labour’s public services spokesperson Camilla Belich says it is an “absolutely unbelievable decision to weaponize the Public Service Commission against striking workers”.
Tens of thousands of teachers, doctors and nurses will walk off the job on Thursday, demanding better pay and working conditions.
Luxon said there had been new offers presented by the government to the unions and they had failed to take them to their members.
“They want to go on strike.”
He maintained there was “good faith on our side”, but the unions were politically motivated.
“We get it. They don’t like our government, very close with Labour – understand all of that – but actually it’s a massive disservice to their members, massive disservice to the kids, parents and patients.”
“I’m absolutely shocked that that decision was taken.”
Though the ads may have been withdrawn, there were still questions about why they were put up in the first place, she said.
“Absolutely unbelievable decision by the government to weaponize the Public Service Commission against striking workers.”
She said posting ads on Facebook was a “different way of attacking workers”, as opposed to press releases on the Beehive website and she was considering a complaint around the utilisation of the funds for the ad.
“Any amount of public money that is misspent needs to be investigated and decisions around that need to be held to account.”
Asked about reports that commissioner Roche was on holiday, Belich said she would expect the lead negotiator to be available during what could potentially be “one of the biggest strikes we’ve seen”.
She acknowledged strikes were political, but also said they were lawful and a “well-understood” way of ensuring industrial action and bargaining was “meaningful”.
Hipkins was also concerned about the “politicisation” of the commission and the way it was fronting industrial action on behalf of the government.
“Ministers should be out there fronting this, not the Public Service Commissioner. It does, in my view, overstep the bounds of what a politically neutral public service should be involved in.”
“Ultimately, the government ministers need to accept responsibility for the consequences of their decisions at the end of the day.
“Yes, bargaining is done by officials on behalf of government ministers, but it is government ministers who set the parameters for that.”
Hipkins said he met with teachers who were striking while he was Minister of Education: “I fronted up to them.”
He said the present Education Minister, Erica Stanford, was “currently invisible” in this process.
The strikes were consequences of political decisions made by government ministers he believed.
“We should not be putting public servants in that position. The Public Service Commission does need to take care to protect the political neutrality of the public service.”
The Public Service Commission has been approached for comment.
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