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Budget 2025: Nervous Wait For Thousands Of Public Service Workers

Budget 2025: Nervous Wait For Thousands Of Public Service Workers

Scoop20-05-2025

Press Release – PSA
Cost to New Zealand women of pay equity betrayal to become clear
Tomorrow's Budget will lift the lid on how much further public services will be cut and expose the cost to underpaid women from the dismantling of the pay equity process.
'Public services including our cash strapped health system cannot afford to face further cuts and job losses,' said Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi National Secretary, Fleur Fitzsimons.
'More than 150,000 women have been denied the pay rise they deserve from this disappointing decision to gut our pay equity laws with no prior notice before the election or even a Select Committee process so that New Zealand women could have their say. Tomorrow's Budget will make the scale of the cost to women clear.
'We sadly predict Government will be starving many public service agencies and our health system of funds, just as they did last year, and that means further damage to the services New Zealanders rely on.
'And we will see how the 'billions of dollars' set aside to fund pay equity settlements for underpaid women, will be freed up to fund the Government's tax cuts for landlords and make the Budget numbers add up.
'This will be a mean and nasty Budget, built on taking money from care and support workers and others who had been expecting pay equity settlements before the goal posts were shifted, existing claims scrapped, all under urgency, and without a chance for their voice to be heard.
'We call on the Government to reverse all cuts to public services, fund our health system properly and put changes to pay equity laws through a proper select committee process.
'In health, the effective hiring freeze for clinical roles is putting patient care at risk, leaving health workers over worked, stressed and facing increasing risk from angry patients poorly served by the system.
'Every day we see the price New Zealanders and communities are paying for the Government's short-sighted and rushed cuts to spending.
'Just look at last week's damning report by the Auditor-General into Oranga Tamariki. Savings demanded by the Government meant the agency cut funding to hundreds of community service provider contracts, with little notice, without regard to the harm inflicted on the vulnerable children they support.
'We have a meth crisis in this country – the Government slashed resources for border protection, which has only made that problem far worse.
'New Zealanders can't afford any further cuts to public services. Too much damage has already been done.'

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PSA Welcomes Withdrawal Of Suspension Of Disability Workers At Te Roopu Taurima
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PSA Welcomes Withdrawal Of Suspension Of Disability Workers At Te Roopu Taurima

Mediation is set to resume with disability support provider Te Roopu Taurima and the PSA following the withdrawal of a lockout and suspension of workers without pay by the employer, the PSA in return agreed to lift the strike notices. Te Roopu Taurima o Manukau Trust is the country's largest provider of kaupapa Māori-based support for people with disabilities in residential facilities in Northland, Auckland, Waikato and Canterbury. "We welcome the withdrawal of the harsh and oppressive suspension and lockout and as a result the PSA also withdraws strike action in support of the collective agreement," said Fleur Fitzsimons National Secretary Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi. Te Roopu Taurima told the PSA it would suspend 38 workers late Friday without pay for six weeks in response to low level strike action taken in support of their collective agreement. Last year the trust also locked out Kaitaataki (house leaders for residential disability support) preventing them from working the extra hours they rely on to earn enough to support themselves and their whānau, this forms part of legal action in the Employment Court. The PSA and Te Roopu Taurima attended facilitation run by an Employment Relations Authority member recently. The Authority member then provided recommendations to settle the collective agreement. "The PSA did not get everything we wanted but nevertheless agreed that we would recommend the outcomes to our members. Te Roopu Taurimu now needs to come to the party and accept the recommendations, this is the basis on which the PSA attends mediation. We will now return to mediation with the hope of settling this dispute. "Our members want to put this dispute behind them, get the fair wages and conditions they deserve, and get on with their important work of supporting tangata."

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