Now is the time to invest in education and skill development

"Now is the time, when we have good economic growth and relatively full employment, to make the investment in education and skill development, to work on improving workplace performance and organization, to improve workforce participation, and to create decent jobs," Ross Wilson told the PPTA Conference on 27th September 2005. His speech follows:Greetings from the officers and staff and the 34 other unions and more than 300,000 union members who make up the CTU.

Can I begin by acknowledging your union's contribution to the work of the CTU, and particularly Kevin's continuing work as a Trustee and member of the Finance and Administration Committee. We take pride in the openness of our CTU processes and it is really encouraging when unions do participate in our Committees and work groups.
I have had the benefit of seeing your conference papers in advance and I have again been very impressed by the quality of the professional dimension of your work. It really is one of the great strengths of a union like the PPTA that it can address the broad range of issues, industrial, professional and political, which are of concern to union members.
Our strategy in rebuilding the union movement since the 1990s has been to encourage unions, particularly in the private sector, to be more than bargaining agents, and to endeavour to focus on all of the issues within the industry or sector which are of concern to the workers in that sector.
And I think there is still a high expectation, even out there among non-unionists, that it is unions that will advocate for and protect their interests. Although I haven't seen a recent poll here in New Zealand but I was intrigued by a poll in this weeks issue of McCleans Magazine (a sort of Canadian "Time" Magazine) in which more than 80% of people polled see unions as crucial or necessary in today's global market:

And of course, in addition to undertaking your own professional analysis, and engaging in a wide sweep of joint work programmes with the Ministry of Education, you have undertaken public advocacy for your point of view through paid advertising and other media??something which I think should be commended. The CTU has taken a similar approach in respect of the policies of political parties during the general election. Yet, both of our organisations have been subjected to political and media criticism for it. We have even been lumped in with the Exclusive Brethren.
We have talked a lot about political participation at the CTU over the past six years.

We felt the bitter effect of hostile political power in the 1990s and we are determined to ensure that ordinary working people, coming together as unions, are able to play an active role in democratic society.

It is not only our right, but our duty to encourage union members to exercise their democratic rights.

We take great pride in the fact that the CTU, with more than 300,000 members, is the largest democratic organization in New Zealand.

The 1990s showed that the civil society structures in our democracy are surprisingly fragile. The political attack on unions was not seen as the attack on democratic institutions that it was.

Unions have an important role to play in a democracy. When union rights are threatened and denied, as they were in New Zealand during the 90s, democracy itself is threatened.

That experience demonstrated the need to build and strengthen our union influence on the policies of political parties?.and we have done that with considerable success over the past few years.

Obviously, Governments must be given due credit for measures they legislate but nobody in Government would dispute that it has been the union movement, led by the CTU, which has spearheaded the work for:

? Fairer employment laws

? A fairer Holidays Act including 4 weeks annual leave (from April 2007) and penal rates for public holiday work

? Increased investment in health & education

? Annual minimum wage increases (up 35.7% since 1999)

? The Modern Apprenticeship Scheme

? Stronger workplace health and safety laws

? An improved public fund ACC scheme

? Paid parental leave
And that is without even mentioning the vital role which unions like the PPTA have played in promoting quality public education and defending it against threats like bulk funding, privatization, and individual bargaining.
And just for the record can I say that I think there are fundamental differences between organizations like the CTU and the PPTA on the one hand, and the Exclusive Brethren on the other:

? Firstly, we are democratic organisations which provide public voice for working people who voluntarily associate as members. The Exclusive Brethren is a small and extreme religious sect which supposedly prohibits political activity by its members.

? Secondly, we are open and transparent about our advocacy. The Exclusive Brethren have been covert and secretive.

? Thirdly, the emphasis in our publications is on factual information to inform the choice of workers who will vote. The Exclusive Brethren have been distributing factually inaccurate leaflets telling other people how to vote when they don't vote themselves.

The CTU strongly asserts the right for workers to participate collectively in democratic processes and draw attention to policies which political parties are trying to hide.

It is not for the CTU to tell individual members which party they should vote for, but we do accept it as our responsibility to provide the analysis of policies, and their implications for working people, which some political parties would prefer to keep below the radar.
And a notable omission from the Election Campaign was any serious discussion about the challenges we face from globalisation, and in particular the potential impact we face with the emergence of China as a major economic power.
I know that I mentioned this when I spoke to you last year but I make no apology for returning to this theme.
I do so for two reasons. Firstly because this is a major challenge we face as a nation and it is important that we debate publicly how we should respond to it as a vital national issue and secondly, because education is a vital key to the strategy we believe, as the CTU, should be pursued as a matter of urgent national interest.

Our future lies in building a high skill, high performance, high wage economy which recognises the value of skills and knowledge and treats labour as a valuable asset.

It is now recognised that the Employment Contract Act era of the 1990s encouraged employers to focus on reducing labour costs rather than investing in skill development and technology to improve productivity.

The result is that our wages here are low enough to drive skilled workers offshore, particularly to Australia, but not low enough to ever compete with China.

In April I visited several factories including a Shanghai tannery, Richina Leather, which has a New Zealand connection. It is a modern plant with good working conditions and producing high quality products with a unionised workforce. But the essential point is that the salary bill for the 22 expatriate Australian and New Zealand managers employed by Shanghai Richina is more than the total wage bill for the 2,500 Chinese employees.

We can't compete on wages. The impact of China on all countries, including ours, is going to be immense over the coming years.

It is estimated that even developing countries like Bangladesh and Indonesia will each lose up to a million manufacturing jobs to cheaper labour options in China.

At the CTU we have also asserted the right to be involved, with Government and business, in the development and delivery of economic and social development strategies with the objective of creating more and better jobs for our current union members, and for their children and grandchildren.

Now is the time, when we have good economic growth and relatively full employment, to make the investment in education and skill development, to work on improving workplace performance and organization, to improve workforce participation, and to create decent jobs.

And we have made some good progress on this work over the last year or so:

? Firstly, the workplace health and safety rep training organization the CTU established jointly with ACC only 2 years ago is now the largest, and the best, health and safety training organisation in New Zealand. By the end of this year we will have trained almost 15,000 workplace health and safety representatives, and it is no coincidence that in that 2 year period the workplace fatality rate in New Zealand workplaces has fallen by 60%.

? Secondly we have launched a Workplace Learning Rep project based on the concept that workers are more comfortable discussing their learning needs (whether basic literacy or numeracy, or life long learning) with a worker adviser, than with their boss. In developing this programme we are able to build on our Health and Safety Rep experience.

? Thirdly, a Business NZ?CTU dialogue on productivity has blossomed into a full blown tripartite initiative to improve productivity in New Zealand workplaces. It is worth noting that a recent OECD report identified improving productivity as the most important priority for the New Zealand economy.

? Fourthly, CTU unions have committed to working with Government and employers on skill and industry development agendas and we have re-structured into CTU industry groups for the purpose of this engagement.

? And finally, and very importantly, the ERA amendments which come into effect late last year will make it a lot more difficult for those employers who have persisted in maintaining a 1990s ECA mindset to continue playing old-fashioned industrial relations games. The ERA provides a framework and an opportunity for modern good faith relationships between employers and unions and, in order to build the productive workplaces of the future, we need to get on with it.

And it is important, even to retain skilled workers, that we significantly lift our wages and salaries. We have an average 25% wage gap between Australia and here; a gap which was created during the 1990s. What is the effect of that? The effect is that if you want better wages for your skills you only have to cross the Tasman and you'll get a job that will pay 25% and more than you are paid here.

New Zealand already has more skilled workers employed abroad than any other country in the OECD.

You took the decision collectively to address that issue in collective bargaining in secondary teaching three years ago, with excellent results. We now have to build on the momentum and expectation which has developed during our 5% Fair Share campaign, to demonstrate that the key to getting a wage increase is to join a union and get organised into collective bargaining.

It is no coincidence that the official wage statistics for the last quarter show a median increase of 5% for workers engaged in collective bargaining, and less than half of that for workers who are not organised.

It was very disappointing that there was very little political debate about these vitally important issues during the election campaign. Business commentator Rod Oram has described them as the "real issues" facing business, rather than the ones they complain about constantly.

But the comparative strategies were there in stark relief in the choice between:

? Investment in our future through increasing investment in education, training, infrastructure, housing and health, OR
tax cuts which would have inevitably also meant investment cuts, as well as education bulk funding and privatisation.

? Continuing to build wages and good faith relationships with the Employment Relations Act OR
returning to an Employment Contracts Act model with its inevitable focus on reducing wages and conditions and fragmenting bargaining.

? Continuing to build modern participative workplaces with Health & Safety Reps and Learning Reps OR
returning to the 1990s model of the boss knows best.

It is this sort of analysis that led the CTU to distribute leaflets and commission billboards and paid advertising with the voting records and key policies of political parties, and to encourage union members to play an active role in the Election Campaign. The result was probably a higher level of activism by union members than we have seen before in what was possibly the most important election of our generation.

The result is a very narrow margin, subject to special votes, in favour of a continuation of the current policies.

For the CTU it is a huge relief that we can continue the strategies, programmes and campaigns that we have been developing. We have just launched the Learning Rep programme, and we are about to launch a workshop programme which will take the challenge of skill development and productivity out into New Zealand workplaces.

From our Runanga involvement in the Hui Taumata, we have also developed a very exciting workshop programme targeted at Maori workers in the seafood, food manufacturing and tourism industries. This is a project which will be led by our Runanga and has the potential to not only make a major contribution to the skill development of the Maori workforce, but also to develop uniquely Maori education and organising programmes as a partnership within the CTU.

And I am sure it is a relief that you will be able to put the threat of bulk funding and privatisation behind you again and focus on more positive challenges.

But if there is any lesson from the Election Campaign it is the old one of eternal vigilance. If we are committed to the more inclusive investment agenda of economic and social development we have been progressively building over the past six years we are going to have to work hard to build support for it.

The last few months have demonstrated how well-funded advertising and policies targeted at prejudice and self interest can be used cynically to divide the country in the pursuit of political power.

And the threat has only been deferred. We will need to use the next three years very wisely, to capitalise on our legislative and industrial achievements and maximise our organised strength across the union movement.

We know what has to be done but exactly how we do it, as a union movement, will be the subject of our Election de-brief and the CTU Biennial Conference next month when we will refine our strategic priorities for the years ahead.

And if we can build in every sector the high levels of membership density and engagement, which you have in your sector, we will have achieved a strong union movement.

To conclude, I wish you a productive and enjoyable conference and look forward to working closely with you to maintain and build the social democratic agenda of which excellent public education is such an integral part.