It’s Right to Strike!

By VUW International Socialists / ISO

Last month more than 36,000 nurses, midwives, health care assistants and kaimahi hauora voted to strike for 24-hours after an insulting offer from the government.

The offer for their new collective agreement? A measly 1 percent payrise and a complete failure to address safe staffing issues. Because this pay “rise” is below inflation, it’s really a pay cut in real terms. Meanwhile, continued understaffing will mean more nurses stretched thin, and more patients put at risk.

As the nurses union (NZNO) Kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku explained last September, “our health system is in total decay, and as nurses we grind ourselves to a pulp to try to fill the gaps. We are pushed and pushed, to tears, to breaking point, to burnout or worse, and still we’re utterly devalued and sidelined.”

The working class always absorbs the shocks of capitalism in crisis, and strikes are one of the most effective ways of fighting back. Every strike reminds the employer who really makes the wheels turn, and reveals to the workers their collective power. 

In this way, strikes are not just means to win—they are victories in themselves. In practical terms they teach us how to write effective slogans for picketlines, perform speeches at rallies, and make political arguments about our jobs. In deeper ways, they build class confidence and strengthen solidarity.

Thanks largely to the Employment Contracts Act 1991 and Employment Relations Act 2000, which both delivered devastating changes to workers’ rights, many of these lessons have been lost. Where workers throughout the 19th and 20th centuries struck to oppose racist pay gaps, military conscription, and collaboration with apartheid South Africa, strike activity in recent decades has hit record lows. 

Today it is legal to strike only during collective bargaining (after 40 days, and if a majority of union members vote in favour) or over workplace safety concerns. Striking over political issues, disputes such as sexual harassment, or in solidarity with other workers, is illegal. 

Illegal strikes—called wildcat strikes—however, can still happen. In 2002 wildcat strikes by high school teachers all across the country won a vital campaign for more non-contact hours, better pay, and increased allowances. Amid fears of further strike action, threatened court action against the teachers was dropped.

The nurses strike is another boost to our confidence. With the government slashing health funding and propping up big business, united workers can force them to concede. And what can students do? Show up on picketlines, make connections with strikers, and spread the word in your classes or workplaces. We have a chance to make striking a part of the future.