Q+A: CTU President Richard Wagstaff interviewed by Corin Dann
Council of Trade Unions calls for a national standards system for setting wages.
CTU president Richard Wagstaff told Corin Dann on TVNZ 1’s Q+A programme that, ‘we want something that’s fit for the
21st century.’
‘If you look at countries who do better than us, who pay wages better, who have more competitive industries, more
successful economies, they have systems where there are national standards. We need to bring ourselves that way. The
trouble is the Contracts Act. The Contracts Act was a disaster. The Employment Relations Act was supposed to promote
collective bargaining. It was supposed to address the inherent imbalance between employees and employers.’
CORIN So, what, for dairy workers there would be a standard pay that you couldn’t go below?
RICHARD That’s correct. That’s what we’d be looking to do. We’d identify occupations, negotiate with employers and set floors
around basic conditions for particular occupations.
Please find the transcript attached and you can watch the full interview here.
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Q + A
Episode 7
RICHARD WAGSTAFF
Interviewed by Corin Dann
CORINWelcome back to Q Well, unions were celebrating a big pay rise for healthcare workers this week. Around 55,000 care and support workers –
mainly women – will get pay rises after a four-year equity pay battle. The government initially fought back against the
claim. It’s now settled with a package worth around $2 billion over five years. Well, Richard Wagstaff is the president
of the Council of Trade Unions. He joins me now. Good morning to you, Richard.
RICHARDMorena. Good morning.
CORINHow significant is this? Will it actually ripple out, do you think, across the economy?
RICHARDWell, I certainly hope so. I mean, it’s been a fantastic week for us and we’re absolutely delighted, of course. This
hasn’t—This isn’t the beginning or the end of equal pay. We have a long way to go when it comes to correcting the
imbalance between men’s and women’s pay. This really was started decades ago. This is a very significant milestone. We
hope to go on from here, but time will tell, really. There’s certainly some more cases we can see that need to be
received.
CORINLet’s talk about some of those. Social workers is one of them, isn’t it?
RICHARDYeah, well, what’s happened is while this case was proceeding— I mean, the first thing is it started with Kristine
Bartlett and the union took a very successful legal case on behalf of Kristine, and then the unions negotiated with the
government and said, ‘Let’s broaden that out. Let’s bring in other groups of workers who are very much like aged
residential care workers.’ So we brought in other unions – the PSA, the NZNO and the CTU – and we brought in other
industries like home support and disability. So we ended up doing a deal for 55,000 people. Tremendous, of course, but
there are many others in the wings. What happened—We have social workers. We’ve got clerical staff in the health sector
– PSA are taking cases there. NZEI are taking cases for teacher aides and support staff.
CORINBut Prime Minister Bill English did say there would be a high hurdle, didn’t he? What did you take from that?
RICHARDWell, the government made such a good run of doing this case, which was really positive and we’re pleased about that,
but there’s a bit of a fly in the ointment. A couple of days after we made that settlement, they introduced legislation
which doesn’t really follow the existing act in all regards, the Court of Appeal case or, in fact, the negotiation
process. They’ve actually—We think there’s a potential to inhibit further equal pay claims and we really need to work
that through.
CORINWhy is that? This is about trying to equate one type of work with another, isn’t it? It’s to try and get a proper
comparison.
RICHARDYeah. The essence of the Kristine Bartlett Terranova case was this idea that women who aren’t being paid properly need
to be able to compare themselves with male-dominated industries, and what the proposed act is doing – it introduces a
new principle, which is that, in fact, you should compare yourself with your same industry in the first instance. We
think that that’s really an impediment to getting decent settlements. We want appropriate comparators. We want relevant
comparators. We want the best comparators. The point is not actually to agree exactly on who the comparator is. The
point is to have reference points in the bargaining process, and this whole thing is about bargaining. The Kristine
Bartlett case – the care and support case – was bargained through. It wasn’t a rigid process; it was a flexible process.
CORINHow many workers would we be talking about with those extra groups? Because, I mean, it’s costing the government $2
billion for this particular settlement. Could it be looking at another $2 billion over five years if it brought all the
others in?
RICHARDYeah. Well, I think a better way of putting it is that it’s been costing those workers $2 billion, and for a very long
time.
CORINSure, but people will want to know.
RICHARDYeah, well, that was a very big chunk. Social workers, education support workers and teacher aides, clerical staff –
there’s nothing like 55,000 of them. But there are a lot of other women or female-dominated occupations. Mental health
hasn’t been covered. There’s other workers for MSD. There’s early childhood workers. Then you move into the private
sector. You know, I know unions like First will be looking at retail. We can’t fix the equal pay imbalance if we don’t
actually do something, and we need to take it beyond these 55,000 people.
CORINSure. And if it does go into the private sector, I’m sure one of the pushbacks will be from businesses that they can’t
just give an extra pay rise without a productivity gain to match it. They’ve got to find the money from somewhere.
RICHARDWell, if only that were so, Corin. If you look at productivity gains in New Zealand – which we don’t do very well,
really – but in fact, if you look at, say, the mid-80s up until today, if we’d been sharing productivity gains, by our
reckoning every worker would be about $10,000 better off. Productivity isn’t being shared. We need--
CORINAnd why isn’t it being shared?
RICHARDIt’s not being shared because we have an employment relations system and wage-setting system that simply doesn’t work,
and we think we need some real amendments to the Employment Relations Act to ensure that people can join unions when
they want to and ensure that we have proper national standards.
CORINAll right. Let’s talk about what those changes are, then, and I’m sure the Labour Party will be listening.
RICHARDYeah, well, we’ve told them about our ideas and we think we’ve been well-received. I mean, the fact is that most working
people in New Zealand don’t get to negotiate their pay and don’t get adjustments to their pay. We know that four out of
five workers aren’t in unions and the majority of them don’t get an annual adjustment to their pay. Sure, union members
do, but it’s really hard yards, and if you look at the commercial arrangements we have, they tend to compress pay rates
all the time, and good employers who negotiate with the unions are at a disadvantage to those employers who just
undercut their standards.
CORINSo tell me what that means. What’s the concrete outcome of that? What’s the change that you want?
RICHARDWell, what we’re looking for is a way of setting some national standards for occupations so that when in commercial
processes and competitive processes, employers don’t basically drive down the cost of labour. We’re a real outlier in
New Zealand. We are the only country, if not the only country in the OECD, who doesn’t have a national standards system
where wages are protected.
CORINSo, what, for dairy workers there would be a standard pay that you couldn’t go below?
RICHARDThat’s correct. That’s what we’d be looking to do. We’d identify occupations, negotiate with employers and set floors
around basic conditions for particular occupations.
CORINWhat if it put a dairy company out of business?
RICHARDWell, I don’t think it will put a dairy company out of business. One of the things that’s happening is that employers
who pay decent wages are the ones who are undercut all the time by the cheapskate employers who try to drive wages down.
CORINIt sounds like quite a big change, doesn’t it? Is it a return to the awards system? Is that what you’re saying?
RICHARDWe want something that’s fit for the 21st century. If you look at countries who do better than us, who pay wages better,
who have more competitive industries, more successful economies, they have systems where there are national standards.
We need to bring ourselves that way. The trouble is the Contracts Act. The Contracts Act was a disaster. The Employment
Relations Act was supposed to promote collective bargaining. It was supposed to address the inherent imbalance between
employees and employers.
CORINBut there’s nothing stopping people joining unions, is there?
RICHARDThere’s a lot stopping people joining unions.
CORINWhat?
RICHARDWell, it’s not—What we find is that one person will go—It’s their environment. If they go into a workplace where the
employer is welcoming of unions, where other people are in unions, they’ll join. People are joining unions by the
thousands all the time. The problem is that very same person with the same attitudes and values will go into another
workplace. They might be on a 90-day trial. There is no union there. They’re hardly going to put up their hand and say,
‘Hey, I want to form a union here.’ It’s just not an environment that’s conducive to people exercising those--
CORINSo is that why unions--? Because union membership is very low and it hasn’t really recovered. We heard Jim Bolger
talking about it this week, saying it was too low. I mean, why aren’t you attracting more people?
RICHARDBecause the Employment Relations Act framework doesn’t allow us to offer our presence in workplaces where there’s no
union.
CORINSo you would--? That’s another change. You want that changed so you could be in workplaces promoting your cause?
RICHARDAbsolutely, and it’s not just our view. It’s not just Jim Bolger’s, either, which was a bit ironic given the Contracts
Act. But the OECD, the World Bank, the IMF – they’re saying that we need more collective bargaining. We need a greater
union presence. Not just for wages, Corin. I mean, we’re talking about a fundamental change in workplace culture in New
Zealand where there is more voice for working people, where there is more respect, where they can have a say in the way
things are done, and I know unions. I know working people. They want a positive relationship at work, and there’s too
many people—I think there’s too many employers with these old-fashioned attitudes that are from back in the 70s.
CORINSure. Have you had any indication from Labour that they would adopt particularly this idea of industry-wide pay
standards? Because that would be—I’m sure that would be strongly opposed by business groups.
RICHARDWell, it may be opposed by business groups. I think a lot of good employers who want to pay their staff well would
welcome the fact that they can’t be undercut by employers who can always undercut them. We have talked to Labour. We’ve
talked to the Greens. We’ve talked to Opposition parties and we think we’ve had a good reception, and they want a better
deal for working people too.
CORINBut we’re seeing a Labour Party that is being pretty cautious. They’ve signed up to a fiscal responsibility effectively
with the Greens. They won’t blow the budget – nothing like that. I mean, you’re seeing a pretty cautious Labour Party. I
don’t even think—I spoke to Grant Robertson about this issue, actually, a couple of weeks ago. I’d be surprised if he
would go that far. Would he?
RICHARDWell, we’ll certainly be doing our best to get them over the line. I mean, on that fiscal responsibility envelope, you
heard us come out about that. We think the problems facing New Zealand – the housing problems—You know, I think we’re
about $2 billion short on the health budget this year. The R shortages, the issues around Corrections and so on, the environment – those things can’t just be magicked out of a
policy statement. We need real money. We need real resources, and the current policy of the government of a low tax, low
wage economy isn’t going to do that. It’s not going to fix those problems. We need a fundamental shift.
CORINIs there anything you can do besides changing the act to get union membership back up? I mean, attracting younger
people. It just seems odd that you haven’t been able to push them back up, and I’m wondering, maybe it’s because people
don’t want to be in unions.
RICHARDWell, as I said, in fact, when we look at workplaces where there are unions, people will join, and in fact, young people
will join. Where there’s a union presence, the demographic isn’t that it’s just old people in the union. Young people
will join a union if there’s a union there, but for too many people, they turn up in a workplace and there is no union
there. The employer is hostile to a union being there or if not hostile there just isn’t really a presence, and so they
can’t really engage in a union and take up the issues. We think that our values are very positive and when we are
enabled – if we remove the barriers of the Employment Relations Act to get out there and do our job – just like those
care and support workers. I think we’re riding pretty high and people want to see a stronger union presence.
CORINAll right. Richard Wagstaff, thank you very much for your time from CTU.
RICHARDThanks.
CORINBack to you, Greg.