Latest news with #FleurFitzsimons
Scoop
2 days ago
- Politics
- Scoop
Community Corrections Staff Gearing Up For Industrial Action
Press Release – PSA 'We will be looking to take industrial action if we do not get an improved offer from Corrections, and the mediation, set down for Wednesday 4 June, fails,' says Fleur Fitzsimons, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pkenga … Community Corrections staff – who manage the 26,000 people the Department of Corrections is responsible for outside of prisons – are gearing up to take industrial action. Community Corrections staff – including Probation Officers and Electronic Monitoring staff – are frustrated with low pay and ballooning workloads further fuelled by anger over the Government's rushed changes to the Pay Equity Act, says Fleur Fitzsimons, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi. 'We will be looking to take industrial action if we do not get an improved offer from Corrections, and the mediation, set down for Wednesday 4 June, fails,' Fitzsimons says. Community Corrections staff are 68% female, which falls just agonisingly short of the Government's new threshold requiring a workforce to be made up of 70% women to take a pay equity claim. 'Up until the recent reversal, Probation Officers were subject to a five-year long pay equity claim, they were found to be significantly undervalued and their claim was before the Employment Relations Authority to be settled, Fitzsimons says. 'With the ability to raise a pay equity claim cynically extinguished by the Government, underpaid Community Corrections workers will be expecting to see a significantly improved offer from Corrections,' Fitzsimons says. Community Corrections workers include probation officers, programme facilitators, electronic monitoring staff, community work supervisors, bail support officers, administration staff, and many others. On any given day, Community Corrections staff work with 70% of the people Correction is responsible for, about 26,000 people living in the community. These people include those: who have been released from prison; who are serving Community-based sentences; who are electronically monitored; and who are on electronic bail. PSA union Community Corrections members have been negotiating with Corrections since December and have been offered increases of around 1%, further embedding their low pay, Fitzsimons says. The PSA is balloting members on taking three escalating actions – a complete withdrawal of labour for two, then four then eight hours. An indicative poll of Delegates showed unanimous support for industrial action.
Scoop
2 days ago
- Politics
- Scoop
Community Corrections Staff Gearing Up For Industrial Action
Press Release – PSA 'We will be looking to take industrial action if we do not get an improved offer from Corrections, and the mediation, set down for Wednesday 4 June, fails,' says Fleur Fitzsimons, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pkenga … Community Corrections staff – who manage the 26,000 people the Department of Corrections is responsible for outside of prisons – are gearing up to take industrial action. Community Corrections staff – including Probation Officers and Electronic Monitoring staff – are frustrated with low pay and ballooning workloads further fuelled by anger over the Government's rushed changes to the Pay Equity Act, says Fleur Fitzsimons, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi. 'We will be looking to take industrial action if we do not get an improved offer from Corrections, and the mediation, set down for Wednesday 4 June, fails,' Fitzsimons says. Community Corrections staff are 68% female, which falls just agonisingly short of the Government's new threshold requiring a workforce to be made up of 70% women to take a pay equity claim. 'Up until the recent reversal, Probation Officers were subject to a five-year long pay equity claim, they were found to be significantly undervalued and their claim was before the Employment Relations Authority to be settled, Fitzsimons says. 'With the ability to raise a pay equity claim cynically extinguished by the Government, underpaid Community Corrections workers will be expecting to see a significantly improved offer from Corrections,' Fitzsimons says. Community Corrections workers include probation officers, programme facilitators, electronic monitoring staff, community work supervisors, bail support officers, administration staff, and many others. On any given day, Community Corrections staff work with 70% of the people Correction is responsible for, about 26,000 people living in the community. These people include those: who have been released from prison; who are serving Community-based sentences; who are electronically monitored; and who are on electronic bail. PSA union Community Corrections members have been negotiating with Corrections since December and have been offered increases of around 1%, further embedding their low pay, Fitzsimons says. The PSA is balloting members on taking three escalating actions – a complete withdrawal of labour for two, then four then eight hours. An indicative poll of Delegates showed unanimous support for industrial action.
Scoop
2 days ago
- Politics
- Scoop
Community Corrections Staff Gearing Up For Industrial Action
Community Corrections staff - who manage the 26,000 people the Department of Corrections is responsible for outside of prisons - are gearing up to take industrial action. Community Corrections staff - including Probation Officers and Electronic Monitoring staff - are frustrated with low pay and ballooning workloads further fuelled by anger over the Government's rushed changes to the Pay Equity Act, says Fleur Fitzsimons, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi. "We will be looking to take industrial action if we do not get an improved offer from Corrections, and the mediation, set down for Wednesday 4 June, fails," Fitzsimons says. Community Corrections staff are 68% female, which falls just agonisingly short of the Government's new threshold requiring a workforce to be made up of 70% women to take a pay equity claim. "Up until the recent reversal, Probation Officers were subject to a five-year long pay equity claim, they were found to be significantly undervalued and their claim was before the Employment Relations Authority to be settled, Fitzsimons says. "With the ability to raise a pay equity claim cynically extinguished by the Government, underpaid Community Corrections workers will be expecting to see a significantly improved offer from Corrections," Fitzsimons says. Community Corrections workers include probation officers, programme facilitators, electronic monitoring staff, community work supervisors, bail support officers, administration staff, and many others. On any given day, Community Corrections staff work with 70% of the people Correction is responsible for, about 26,000 people living in the community. These people include those: who have been released from prison; who are serving Community-based sentences; who are electronically monitored; and who are on electronic bail. PSA union Community Corrections members have been negotiating with Corrections since December and have been offered increases of around 1%, further embedding their low pay, Fitzsimons says. The PSA is balloting members on taking three escalating actions - a complete withdrawal of labour for two, then four then eight hours. An indicative poll of Delegates showed unanimous support for industrial action.
RNZ News
3 days ago
- General
- RNZ News
'Chilling effect': Union raises concerns over ministers' interference after leaks
Public service organisations have been urged to "take every possible action" to shut down leaking. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone Stronger whistleblowing laws and more emphasis on free and frank advice are needed to balance out a crackdown on leaks, the Public Service Association (PSA) union says. The campaign against leaks was exposed in a leaked email from a department boss to staff, after Commissioner Sir Brian Roche urged chief executives to "take every possible action" to shut down leaking, including sacking those found responsible where appropriate. PSA national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons said such dismissals would require fair process. "We don't condone leaking, but we cannot see a blanket rule that public servants are dismissed when leaks occur. New Zealand law requires a full and fair investigation process, and employers have to enter that process with an open mind," she said. "Public servants must not leak. But there is a legal duty to provide free and frank advice to the government of the day, and we'd like to see the government also reiterating those expectations alongside these messages about leaking." Pointing to an academic article by Massey's Richard Shaw and Victoria University of Wellington's Chris Eichbaum from 2023, she said there had been a chilling effect on the provision of free and frank advice over multiple governments. "Our members have reported to us that they have been advised not to provide certain commentary in advice or to only do so via phone and that there is direct ministerial involvement in matters that would usually sit within departments," she said. "We saw this with the approach taken to the survey of public servants recently. The chilling effect of this is exacerbated in an environment of constant cuts and job losses." She said Associate Health Minister Casey Costello making accusations in November about a public servant for internal communications about heated tobacco products was another case. PSA national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone The PSA at the time wrote to Sir Brian saying that would have a chilling effect, made worse by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's comments that "appear to conflate this case with a separate issue from last month". Fitzsimons urged the government to look at strengthening New Zealand's whistleblowing law, the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Act 2022. "The current whistleblowing laws in New Zealand put a very high threshold on serious wrongdoing. We would call on government to review those laws, but at the end of the day public servants shouldn't leak, it's not professional to do so, and we advise against it." The Act limits whistleblowing to exposing "serious wrongdoing", which includes posing a serious risk to health, safety, or the maintenance of law, corrupt or irregular use of public funds or resources, or breaking the law. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said that when leaks happened it undermined the public service as a whole. "They do the public service a big disservice frankly and the public's trust in the public service is a problem and that's why I think it's pretty unfair because we've got some great public servants in New Zealand, we're very well served by some awesome people. "We've always had leaking in different governments but it's ultimately up to individuals are trusted to serve the government of the day and to do so in a politically neutral way." ACT leader David Seymour said those found leaking should "absolutely" face repercussions. He had this message for public servants: "Your career as a public servant is a part of your life. For all of your life you're going to be invested in this country working and you have no right to undermine the constitutional setup and framework that has made this country a success, that you've benefited from. "Some of the people who are the people leaking would really struggle to get a job outside the cocoon of the public service, because in the private sector honesty and integrity are highly valued." He said the public service was "far too large" and "if we want to start reducing it maybe we need to leak out a few leakers". Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Scoop
4 days ago
- Politics
- Scoop
Govt Funding Squeeze Sees DOC Propose Cutting 84 Roles
More than 90% of those losing their livelihoods are women workers Two weeks after their pay equity claim was cancelled, dozens of underpaid, mostly women frontline workers at the Department of Conservation (DOC) are now facing redundancy. In a change proposal released today, DOC is looking at another round of job cuts, as the organisation consults on a proposal to lose 84 support roles by July 2026. In total, 149 roles will be disestablished, with 65 with new roles being created (49 of which would be part-time). Only 18 of the 149 roles set to be disestablished are vacant. PSA National Secretary Fleur Fitzsimons says more than 90 per cent of the staff facing redundancy are women, based on the PSA membership data, which includes 90 affected workers. "This is a graphic example of how the burden of the Government's squeeze on public service funding is falling disproportionally on women. At the same time as the Government is stopping pay equity claims for more than 150,000 underpaid, mainly female workers including claims that cover DOC workers. The attacks on women just keep coming from this Government," Fitzsimons says. The proposal has taken a sweeping look at support staff across the organisation. Staff at 38 locations from Invercargill to the far North will be affected. Many of these staff hold critical health and safety responsibilities, which Fitzsimons says should be a concern for an organisation where so many team members work in remote locations. "The current support staff have sizeable health and safety responsibilities, such as monitoring staff radio systems and helping to manage emergencies like fires. The loss of these team members will mean that these important duties will fall on others - and pose a significant health and safety risk. "It doesn't make sense - why would you put these kinds of tasks onto a specialist team member with a lot on their plate already? You can't just absorb 84 disestablished roles into an organisation - it doesn't work." The proposal will also see many of the affected workers, who are on DOC's lowest pay bands, competing with their colleagues for part-time roles, Fitzsimons says. "The support workers at DOC would have benefitted from a pay equity claim that was well underway before it was cruelly cancelled by the Government. "Now, many of these women would have arrived at work to find their job was on the line - and that they might have to compete against their team members for the new positions being established." The continued squeeze on DOC funding ultimately puts its projects - and New Zealand's natural environment - at risk, Fitzsimons says. "Systematically under-funding DOC will unfortunately mean they'll be unable to deliver as well as they could for New Zealand conservation. This Government's spending priorities are clear: landlords and big corporates are in, but women and the environment are out." Other PSA releases on DOC: Using Scoop for work? Scoop is free for personal use, but you'll need a licence for work use. This is part of our Ethical Paywall and how we fund Scoop. Join today with plans starting from less than $3 per week, plus gain access to exclusive Pro features. Join Pro Individual Find out more
