Green Party Co-Leader Metiria Turei - Address at the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Green Party Aotearoa New Zealand and the Service and Food Workers Union
Kia ora koutou katoa, e mihi nui kia koutou Ko Tararua me Ruapehu oku maunga Ko Ruamahanga me Whanganui oku awa Ko Takitimu me Aotea oku waka No Rangitane, Ngati Kahungunu ki Wairarapa me Ati- Hau-nui-a-Paparangi Ko Metiria Turei ahau Kia ora koutou katoa.
I am very proud to be here as Co-Leader of the Greens at the signing of our first memorandum of understanding with a trade union.
The Green Party is working for a sustainable prosperous Aotearoa New Zealand where all our people are cared for, our environment is restored and protected, and our economy is fair and sustainable.
I know that the Service and Food Workers Union is working for the same thing. To achieve this we need to work towards this goal together, each in our different areas with our different strengths. Building strong links between us is key to achieving our collective goals.
Our communities are under real threat at the moment. Our environment is increasingly polluted and damaged, risking the very soils within which our food grows. Many of our rivers are too polluted to take kai from or swim in. Even the climate, the lifeblood of the planet, is under great threat from the greed of large polluting industries. Families are struggling to pay for their homes, worried about their kids education.
And workers everywhere across the country are under attack.
Talley's Open Country cheese factory in the Waikato has locked out their union workers replacing them with temporary labour.
Auckland bus drivers have been locked out, today, simply for trying to achieve slightly better pay and working conditions.
The Warehouse is running a major staff restructuring programme creating insecurity for workers and their families, despite having just increased CEO Ian Morrice's income to $3.8 million this year.
Cleaners working for contractors in schools, malls, and office buildings are taking action to lift their wages from $12.55 an hour to $14.62 an hour, rather than the pitiful 25c an hour on offer.
Telecom has made hundreds of line engineers redundant as it hands their jobs over to Visionstream, who will only take contractors.
And that's just business. Let's not forget the actions of Government.
The National and Act parties have pushed through their Fire at Will legislation - where any worker can get the sack in the first 90 days of employment. Now we fought against this the first time this Bill came up - in that case as a Member's Bill from National MP Dr Wayne Mapp.
The line used by National back then was that this Bill was to 'assist' workers particularly Maori workers and people who had just got out of jail - that's who the National Party say they cared about with the 90 day bill.
They told New Zealand workers - 'Look, we thought this legislation up to help you- we think that now you can be sacked in the first 90 days of your job, that will stop the brain drain to Australia'. National argued that it would stop New Zealander's fleeing to Australia for better wages and conditions.
We want our standard of living to increase, we don't want to keep seeing our whanau go over there for work because it is better than being here with us at home. But this obsession with keeping up with the Aussies is doing our environment and our communities' great harm. It is one of the drivers behind the Government's intention to mine some our most iconic natural heritage.
The reason Aotearoa has such a big wage gap with Australia is because New Zealand governments have been waging a war on worker's rights since the late 80s. Now I'm into a bit of retro but I don't want to go back there!
Labour helped create massive unemployment by flogging off our state assets and costing tens of thousands of workers their jobs - thanks a lot Roger Douglas and Richard Prebble.
Then National's answer to increasing our productivity was to destroy the unions with the Employment Contracts Act and benefit cuts. National also campaigned to frighten people in order to drive workers wages and conditions down.
Workers were genuinely frightened back then because they knew that while it might have been bad watching their employment rights fly out the window they knew it was going to be much much worse if they lost their jobs.
Do you remember the TV ad's telling people to dob in their neighbours if they suspected they were ripping off the system? "Peak out your window… is your neighbour earning a sly tenner on the side - are they on a benefit - dob 'em in quick then!" That was the Kiwi way back then.
This was during the Rankin years at WINZ, when the Government and business elite of the time wanted to pit the low paid worker against the unemployed.
It was during this time that I became truly politicised.
I grew up in a working class Maori family in Palmerston North in the 70s and 80s. I well remember the impact of Labour on my whanau and community during that time. Many working people we knew then lost their jobs in those treacherous reforms. In the 1990s National put the boot in again, creating a real culture of hatred against those without work. I left school with no qualifications and few prospects. I spent a few years on the dole, doing casual and low paid jobs before finding the Unemployed Rights movement.
Our centre in Palmerston North had the great advantage that the local unions backed us because we were advocating for their unemployed members as they were busy fighting off the other industrial relations attacks levelled at unions at the time. I worked with those families, as a beneficiary advocate, during the hard years of the mother of all budgets.
It was hard work and distressing. I was very lucky to be able to work closely with Sue Bradford as the tumuaki of the Te Iwi Maori Rawakore o Aotearoa, the national body for Maori unemployed and beneficiary advocates. For Maori workers at that time, it was very difficult, with whole communities, especially in the rural areas bereft of work, of money and support and still suffering the community and structural racism that this country just will not let go of.
And then I found myself in the same situation again. I was on the DBP, with a small baby to care for and no prospects. I really needed all the support I could get to try to find a way to care for my child. I relied on the DPB and the Training Incentive Allowance and studied for a university degree.
I will always be enormously thankful for the support I received from my family and from the public at that time. That is the importance of having a caring society. That is what getting a fair go is all about.
And why I personally find the policy acts of the Minister of Social Development, Paula Bennett, so abhorrent. She was once part of our community too. But now that she has become successful, now that she has climbed the ladder, she has pulled it up behind her leaving women in her situation without the support that advantaged her.
Since those times in the 80s and 90s, we have had some changes for the better and many have come through the Greens working together with workers organisations. This collaboration was always a passion of Rod Donald and we have not resiled from it.
During the last Labour Government it is true that we have certainly had a lot more worker friendly legislation - but the great tragedy of the Clark Cullen years is that when Business said 'Jump' - the Clark Cullen Government often asked 'how high'? We pushed on numerous occasions for Labour to take a more worker friendly line.
During the last Parliamentary term the Green Party chalked up some notable achievements for workers. I want to pay special tribute to what my colleague Sue Bradford achieved. Sue Bradford's member's bill ended most discriminatory youth rates for 16 and 17 year old workers as of April 2008.
I also want to pay tribute to her work on the Buy Kiwi Made programme - run as part of our cooperation agreement with Labour after the 2005 election. The program was aimed at supporting local manufacturing businesses and jobs. And doesn't it say something about this current government's priorities that Buy Kiwi made was one of the first policies to be axed.
Our other Sue - Sue Kedgley's Member's Bill on flexible working hours came into law in July 2008 - allowing workers to bargain with their employers over when and how they work.
And when it comes to caregivers - both Sue Kedgley and Sue Bradford have repeatedly lobbied on behalf of those workers - in many cases Service and Food Union members - to get a better deal including for those in the disability sector.
Indeed Sue Kedgley will be actively getting stuck in to problems in the aged care sector shortly and this is where our MOU with the Service and Food worker's union will prove invaluable - we need to work together on how our Parliamentary work can make things better both for our elderly and for those who work hard to care for them. This is a highly skilled job in fact and workers in this sector deserve a fair go.
The Greens have either initiated or supported every pro-worker legislative initiative taken over the last decade. But we also would have wanted to go further if we had been part of those governments, and will go further when we are part of a government.
We recognise that the key to improving workers' wages and conditions is in providing the framework for unions to organise adequately.
We would have legislated to better discourage freeloading, where non-union labour tags along on the wages and conditions negotiated by unions and undermines the ability of unions to recruit members.
We would have implemented initiatives that encourage and facilitate multi-party bargaining, including increased legislative requirements for employers to enter into multi-employer collective bargaining and conclude multi-employer collective agreements.
We would have raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and legislated to ensure it cannot drop below 66% of the average wage.
And we will do those things when we are in Government.
In the meantime, we will resolutely defend workers' rights against the newfound employer militancy the election of a National Government has encouraged and against future legislative attacks on workers by the National-led government.
And be under no illusion that this is a moderate Government on industrial relations. Hidden away in National's policy is a proposal to remove the exclusive right for unions to negotiate collective agreements. That is a recipe for union busting - for employers to set up "bosses unions" to undermine collective agreements and cut wages and conditions. It would be the Employment Contracts Act all over again in all but name.
The Green Party will stand by the unions and fight that looming attack on workers for all we are worth.
One of the worst examples of how workers haven't got a fair go in recent times would have to be the way workers contracted to Spotless Services have been treated
When the Government gave money to District Health Board so that wages could be topped up, these workers were short changed because those contracted by Spotless Services didn't get it. In this case the supposed trickle down system of economics hit a rather dry patch! These workers would see other staff doing the same or similar jobs paid much higher wages in the same hospital because they are employed directly by the DHB instead of by a contractor. And of course this was happening when contracted out workers were being threatened/locked out by their employers under a supposedly worker friendly regime!
During this time Green MPs were privileged to stand alongside the SFWU and support these workers - the people that keep our hospitals running. We now have a Government that has many elements within it who are hostile to workers.
There are Ministers in this Government who believe we don't need a minimum wage. These are people who still believe in the unseen correcting hand of the market - a supposed gentle hand that can cure any economic woe! This is the sort of thinking that has lead us into the economic mess the entire world is now in!
That is why it is so important that organisations like the Green Party and the Service and Food Worker's Union work together to advance our common goals and interests. I know you are committed to a sustainable society one that is both environmentally sustainable and economic sustainable.
And what is especially heartening to see from many in the union movement is a commitment to sound environmental policies as well as worker's rights. In the last election campaign the New Zealand CTU released a series of environmental policy objectives:
- Supporting the precautionary principle in relation to genetic engineering and other environmental hazards.
- Investing in public transport, home insulation, solar water heating and other energy efficiency initiatives.
- Funding a worker education programme on energy efficiency.
- And working with social partners, tertiary education organisations and other stakeholders to develop skills for sustainability and 'green jobs'.
These objectives fit in perfectly with our plans to kick start the economy - except we've named it the Green New Deal.
The Green New Deal is our set of solutions for both the crises that face Aotearoa and the globe - climate change and the recession.
These solutions are not rocket science, don't require new technological advances, and are not expensive.
We could build 6000 energy efficient state houses over three years and create more than 28,000 jobs, saving low income families money on their power bills in a home that will keep their kids warm, dry and healthy.
If we invest in public transport now, we can protect low income families from the worst of oil prices and petrol hikes while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
If we invest in the community waste sector we can develop real jobs in rural and regional areas where commercial recycling operations are limited particularly in rural Maori communities. Community recycling operations return some 80 cents in every dollar back to the local community compared to international operations that return only15 cents.
Our Green New Deal package would create 43,000 jobs. We have not included in the numbers the savings that come in unemployment benefits calculated at nearly half a billion dollars. That is half a billion dollars that the government needs to spend elsewhere to protect our families. And it is money that our community needs for local economic development and core social services like education.
Which is why we are so completely opposed to the Emissions Trading Scheme proposed by National.
Labour's scheme was bad, but this is one is even worse. It will enable the transfer of millions of dollars of crucial public money from families to the worst polluters at a time when our communities need that money the most.
Climate justice demands that developed countries act responsibly on climate change, taking responsibility for their emissions, for their consumption and for the impacts of both on poorer communities around the world.
Climate justice demands that here on Te Moana Nui a Kiwa we in Aotearoa have a particular responsibility to our pacific cousins, a responsibility that this current government is failing as we watch some islands lose freshwater and food growing land to erosion and sea level rise.
Climate justice demands that within a nation state, wealthier communities take responsibility for their impacts on vulnerable communities and ensure that the resources and benefits of our country, economic and environmental, are shared fairly for today's generation and tomorrows.
I came to Parliament to protect the vulnerable from the violence and degradation inflicted by the powerful
As we watch our country make its way through this current recession, watch more and more New Zealanders lose their jobs, the Green Party vows to do everything we can to protect them and their whanau.
By working together with you, through this MOU, we have a better chance of succeeding. We look forward to a long and successful relationship with the Service and Food Workers Union, with your members, in supporting each other in our efforts for a sustainable prosperous Aotearoa.
Subscribe to email newsletters
