No mandate for this
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- Date published:
8:55 am, August 21st, 2025 - 22 comments
Categories: act, Dirty Politics, Donald Trump, health and safety, Judith Collins, national, national/act government, Unions, workers' rights -
Tags: doctors, libertarian, nurses, strike, teachers
This post excerpt is republished from Mountain Tui: Nurses, doctors, teachers … our frontline of democracy
The government’s apparent docking of nurses’ pay for working in their wards for their full 12.5 hour shift, is made possible from ACT’s partial strike law, which I covered last year, and this.
For many, it’s a surprise, and I had to refresh myself on it too.
Teachers who refuse to take voluntary sporting or cultural activities or any union member ‘working to rule’ as part of industrial action, could lose up to 10% of their pay..
And:
The government’s plans to dock employee’s pay if they work to rule as part of industrial action will cause more full strikes and lead to greater divisions between workers and employers, says the Council of Trade Unions (CTU).
The law is here.
It also notes employees must pick up extra duties and scope if assigned.
I remember in July 2024 that nurses were already very concerned with how National’s budget cuts were affecting them:
‘Eventually somebody will die,’ a nurse told 1News as she recounted being told to work in unfamiliar wards:
Staff were being moved around like “chess pieces”, including to areas in which they were not trained – including in mental health services.
“They’re not trained, they don’t have the de-escalation skills. They’re just expected to manage. “It’s not safe for the patients or the staff.”
She said one nurse sent to a mental health ward asked what to do if “somebody comes at me”.
“They said ‘just run’ – that was their advice.”
This is why politics matters.
And why “political agenda” is not a dirty phrase, as some misguided internet rando told me.
Instead, it’s the only sane, rational way of living – especially now.
Rage bait draws eyeballs and focus, but it’s the laws which this government are meticulously amending that is the real focus and power play.
Even though too many of us may not draw the line from a policy/law to practical living, that line will always come.
We are already losing tens of thousands of trained and experienced professionals, including police, doctors, nurses and teachers. And we will lose more, as more folks realise what is really happening, and how it will affect their lives.
It doesn’t matter to this government though, because this is an ideologically captured government and their only real goal is to fundamentally change the make up, laws, governance, culture, and operating framework of this country.
i.e. They are re-modelling it to, and I’ve said it before, a US styled libertarian hellscape that none of us endorsed or bought into.
As Forest and Bird’s Nikola Toki said: ”They have no mandate.”
Everything is being done in concert and in a strategic fashion – from flinging open the door to wealthy foreigners, to busting unions, to centralising power (which involves attacking and/or restricting the judiciary), to putting Māori ‘in their place’, to undermining our environmental laws and protections.
Judith Collins’ signal to restrict strikes is also not new. She’s hinted at it before, but now her message is more explicit, and they’ve found a pretext to do so:
“We’re clearly going to have a whole stack of strikes… the unions have made it clear they’re going to strike and strike and strike so we need to have a look at the best options for New Zealanders”.
Psst… wait – did you miss the trick here?
NZCTU already warned in December that strikes would be inevitable if this government persisted in passing the partial strike law (see second quote above).
So where unionized teachers might usually start with smaller strikes and negotiate, here they felt compelled to a full strike.
And now this pre-warned, foreseen outcome is being used as a pretext to punish them more!
Because the real goal is busting unions.
By the way, for anyone who ever says “Oh we should have done x instead of y”, make no mistake – it doesn’t matter how you moved that chess piece, they would have come for this anyway.
Helen Clark said “Expect to see a dirty election”
And it’s here.
Their playbooks are well heralded – consolidation of executive power, busting unions and workers’ rights, rolling back tenant rights, prioritising property, criminalising peaceful protest*1, privatising public assets, sacking public servants.
It’s been in action from before Day 1.
We’ve given this government far too little credit for the scheming, conniving, strategic pawns that they are.
Make no mistake – who we see are just the puppets. The shadows stand behind.
Should you be afraid?
No – there is no point really.
Fear paralyses us, but it’s true they are moving faster and more boldly than I ever expected. They are more resourced than any of us can imagine too.
In the eyes of such people, we are not humans in the sense of those they may need to convince or care about. These are the types of people that genuinely see nature as a hindrance, genuinely view concerns for others as a weakness that must be stamped out, and might actually write things like “freedom and democracy are incompatible”. These are people who attack China as authoritarian fascists, but secretly emulate and copy their tactics and technology. Or accuse others of ‘cheating’ while changing the laws to cheat.
My only advice is to get as many people as you can to turn out to vote, to gain awareness, to read from credible sources such as Newsroom, Guardian, Spinoff, NZ Geo, RNZ, 1News despite their flaws, independent writers such as Hickey.
I recommend you form connections in your communities and use subtle influence to learn and help if you can.
We operate in our own “echo chambers”, and reaching across the aisle is crucial for those that are still open.
And support your party and their leaders – whether it’s the Green Party, Labour, Te Pati Māori.
Put aside your criticism and pick up your tools to see how you can help. Put away your judgements and in-fighting to focus on preventing a second term, because I can guarantee that if they win again….well, let’s not go there, shall we?
Not today.
PS
Government has also brought back Fire At Will
A Letter
But then there's this, re “see how you can help“:
TBH, from where I sit it is less about reaching across the aisle it's just looking around us here on the left.
So many need to overcome the urge to nitpick because someone isn't as pure as them. For example in relation to covid, labeling anyone who dissented as a cooker.
And it’s for fellow members of Team Jacinda’ to call out the colleagues when they do this.
"labeling anyone who dissented as a cooker."
Nah only those who dissented for ridiculous reasons were labelled as such.
That distinction ("ridiculous reasons") is not made round these parts.
Even if the reasoning is ridiculous to you, there is little chance of union with that criticism.
So what opinion did you express that you got called a cooker if you were even called one?
Did anyone here (these parts) call you a cooker or are you taking that mantle on all by yourself? A red badge of courage so to speak.
You are claiming all dissenters got called cookers not me. I'm saying that's bullshit. There were plenty of people who dissented without spouting non-sensical conspiracy theories and without being called cookers.
You were here or hereabouts during the height of tensions through Covid. You would have seen that term emerge and get popular.
I've called out a few people for using that term, mostly, I think, because that was the language of their 'tribe'. I tend not to bother or not engage with them, as it isn't worth either party's time.
The phrasing has raised its ugly head again here in the backwash of the Covid Enquiry II.
The term doesn't have to be aimed at one personally, just at a set of beliefs that might be held.
Anyhow, I think this is becoming a distraction as the post seems to be aiming at unity.
I've never use 'cooker' as a pejorative, and we don't know how lucky we were – imho.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_for_Freedom
Yep, I could have been clearer, that wasn't meant personally.
Obviously, it it hard to achieve an understanding when one feels on the defensive.
Not sure about the wiki link to VFF. Most of the dissenters I know got to that state without any group think.
Isn’t that the point of unions though? Since the Secessio Plebis in the 5th century BCE, the core power of working people when faced with unsafe conditions, unfair treatment, or exploitation has been the same: the ability to withdraw their labour.
In New Zealand, we’ve had over 120 years of relatively stable industrial relations, where the law sought to balance the massive power disparity between employer and employee. Aside from the original 1991 Employment Contracts Act, our framework has broadly (but imperfectly) upheld the principle that workers deserve protection and fair bargaining rights.
This government’s deliberate erosion of that balance isn’t reform: it’s regression. Bit by bit, they are tipping the scales to weaken unions, diminish collective bargaining, and leave workers more exposed.
That’s not flexibility. That’s not fairness. It’s an attempt to reduce us to modern serfs beholden to employers and big business. And we should call it what it is.
Where is our modern-day Samuel Parnell? And at what point do we start asking the question nobody wants to ask out loud: do we need to seriously consider a general strike?
In regards asking about a general strike, it is overdue.
The next question is what are we demanding?
I have a couple of ideas- All migrants here for employment reasons have their union fees paid by their employer.
Also, during wage negotiations, no politician is to comment on them, looking at you Andrew Little, Luxon, Brown, Collins etc.
If I refuse to pay the price of a product the retail shop won't provide it.
If a boss won't pay the price of my labour I won't provide it.
I found it incredible the top lawyer in the country, Judith Collins, outright lied about teachers' pay, and was simply allowed to unconvincingly apologise and go on the attack again.
Ae, I wonder if she's trying to nobble Erica? Erica's ncea change plan was very well received at my school. She was popular… then along come crusher Collins lies.
I find it incredible that you think it’s incredible that a politician lied haha. They of all shapes and sizes, blue/red, green/yellow etc etc lie all the time.
Or was Collins just joking? It's the way she tells 'em haha – check her eyebrows
Mind you, Collins is Aotearoa New Zealand’s Attorney-General – quite fantastic!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney-General_(New_Zealand)
'Top lawyer?' lol
Sounds silly, I know. It's the term the AG is sometimes referred to as, I think. That's how I was using it, anyway.
What surprised me more than what Collins did is what the left didn't do.
Collins opened herself to criticism that how can you make a serious offer when you don't know the original salary scale.
In other words, based on neoliberalism ideology, her offer should be what it takes to move teachers salaries to where they should be according to the market, not simply a thumb suck percentage.
If you don’t know how much they earn now, how do you know the appropriate amount to offer to get them to the new market level?
Or, given that Collins thought teachers were paid up to $140k, accept that as her recommendation of what they should be paid.
But neither of these happened.
I had thought 'work to rule' meant not doing any work other than what an employees were legally meant to do as in their contract/employment agreement.
There looks to be a bit of a fuzzy area between "work to rule" and "partial strike"
Found this on MBIE re Employment Relations Act 2000.
There is.
I was just considering the partial strike laws and work to rule in the context of MPs and their attendance at electorate offices.
All MPs have them – even list MPs. But there are quite few MPs who are notable for never actually attending them and listening to constituents talking about the vast range of things that they find important.
Some MPs don't appear to like paying much attention to attending their electorate offices. The meetings are often annoying, but are invaluable for getting an idea about what is actually going on. It is an important non-contracted part of their role.
Also worth docking MP salaries by 10% for partial strikes. The legislation provides a good basis for acting on inadequate MPs. After all MPs are just public servants employed by Parliamentary Services. They are just as culpable under the legislation as any other employee.
Any suggestions about MPs to start raking over the coals. Todd McClay in Rotorua would be high on my list. He has been notable for for avoiding any electorate meetings, even when he was in opposition.
I’d like to see the diary of Shane Jones, who I suspect avoids any meetings that don’t involve being on a podium lecturing groups.
We need to work together, because Seymour would like civil unrest. They could use statutes that were never removed.
The Beehive Civilian reporting with a militant tendency.
Family values, replace Collins with the Sōryū class, rather than the Virginia.
Another ageing has been to be retired – last flight of the Boeing 757 out of Wellington to take up a job in Canberra.
Remove the strike-breakers.