Anne Daniels, President
NZNO Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa

On Tuesday 5 September, I stood with an NZNO colleague in Dunedin giving support to our ASMS medical colleagues who had gone on strike for the first time, and was reminded of Marvin Gaye’s amazing song “What’s going on”

Picket lines (sister), picket lines (brother)
Don’t punish me (sister), with brutality (brother)
Come on, talk to me (sister), so you can see (brother)
Oh, what’s going on (What’s going on)……

I remarked to a medical colleague who had just been interviewed, why do we have to fight for what is right and just all the time? He responded that to save money, we have to invest money.

And that is so right. When nurses are not with the patients 24/7 because of nurse shortages due to shortsighted funding decisions, avoidable harm and adverse events occur. In the past six years, ACC has fielded 6000 complaints regarding pressure areas at an estimated cost of $19 million a year. And that does not include the suffering of those who experienced pressure area wounds, the loss of choices, the pain, and the wider impact on their families and care givers.

New Zealand has a strong history of striking when talking and listening have failed in negotiations. Some strikes have been successful, and some haven’t. New Zealand’s longest, the 1951 New Zealand waterfront lockout which lasted 151 days and involved 22,000 workers from multiple unions, failed. The National Government of the day stated that New Zealand was at war.

Thirty years later the Kinleith strike followed hot on the heels of a national strike involving 100,000 workers, protesting against a wage freeze imposed by Muldoon’s Renumeration Act 1979, and they won. It was described as the “Greatest Workers Victory” and the Kinleith workers elected their delegates and self-organised, not only themselves but engaged the whole community to work together in solidarity. And it is starting to feel like that now.

While we might stand on the picket lines with our medical colleagues, the firefighters and ambulance crews were there too. So was the local Council of Trade Unions. We are all protesting against the same injustices, but we are doing it in silos. As someone wise said we need to “demand more than a new fitting for the current underfunded straightjacket”.

We need innovative bold solutions that we will only be able to gain by having every nurse (midwife, health care assistant, kaiāwhina)/doctor/firefighter/ambulance crew member/teacher/support worker etc stand up together in solidarity for fair pay (not pay cuts), safe staffing (not doing more with less), and quality outcomes for those we care for. There’s an election coming.

Maranga Mai! every nurse, everywhere.