Kerri Nuku Kaiwhakahaere
Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa NZNO

International solidarity is critical! In recent weeks as representatives of NZNO, we were given the opportunity to interact with our visiting colleagues from the US. What we found was that even though they are a world away their problems are similar.

We discovered one of their main issues as well was solidarity of nurses. There is power in solidarity and nurses worldwide need to unify now more than ever. We need to fight back against the powerhouses in authority, and health as the link to get us where we need to be in order to fight for the social justice that society’s most vulnerable deserve. Therefore, it is critical that we share information and ideas.

We can use health as an access point to think about justice broadly. It’s where we see the physical, emotional and mental toll of racism, colonialism, and dispossession firsthand. What we need is collective union voice of nurses to fight back not just to protect the profession of nursing, but also the role that we have as unionists.

Whether we like it or not, health is intrinsically intertwined with politics. Take the US elections for example. Its impact has already reached our shores, or it is on its way. If Donald Trump gets elected as president again, the impact he will have across all three political platforms will be detrimental to workers’ rights. The US unions are terrified of as they know that as soon as Trump comes in, it will almost be the death of the unions. He will reverse the rights of workers and the right to unionise.

There is an uncanny parallel between Trump’s Republican Party and our coalition Government. They’re both all about privatisation and building capital and privatised wealth. In Aotearoa, we’re witnessing the power of the Government to make or shift government policies to the right.

What Aotearoa urgently needs is a government that understands the value of healthcare. It is our jobs to ensure they understand this. NZNO has been described as militant, but I think it’s what is required from us. We’re here to protect the rights of workers and we’ve got to remember that. The union is about holding strong and allowing members the freedom to do their work.

As a union, we need to make sure that we’re united. It’s about Kotahitanga because Kotahitanga to me, is not just about being united, but caring for those you need to unite. That’s what we need to do as a union. We’re going to face many battles, but we’ve got to be clear, and remember those who have struggled for us to get to where we are today. And we’ve got to make sure that we leave it in a better place for our mokopuna so we’ve got to keep holding the line and keep pushing forward.

And like we’re doing and it’s significant that we share information and ideas.

I want to conclude by saying this is our fightback and this is our opportunity to push back. This week, I listened to the Access health workers battle cry: “Stand up fight back, workers’ rights are under attack”. and I think we’ve got to really keep that in the forefront because we are seeing workers’ rights diminished and our power undermined. And we are finding it more and more difficult to work in the health sector unless we are united.