Hoots doesn’t believe my suggestion that Labour strategists were smart enough to use the pay freeze to slip past the Fair Pay Agreement last week, but then again Hoots thought Todd Muller was a smart choice for National Party Leader so his Machiavellian radar might be off a tad.
The play was…
1 – Quietly tell the PSA no pay rises for 3 years.
2 – Greens and PSA go into meltdown screaming for gold plated $100k public service jobs
3 – Announce Universal Union Membership WHILE giving the CTU $250k to help implement it.
4 – Critics shut the fuck up because Labour have just pulled out the greatest workers rights upgrade since the 1908 blackball miners strike and the public won’t tolerate strikes from public servants being paid $100 000.
…Hoots was right about 3 things though.
1 – There is going to be a huge increase in welfare benefits.
2 – He is right that Jacinda and Grant’s driving force is low paid workers.
3 – The Wellington Public Service is all aflutter at getting hustled.
So aflutter a not so anonymous Union Official has donned a mask and sang the blues…
Opinion: Attempted pay freeze an act of intimidation by a Government terrified of strikes
…their claim is that the Pay Freeze was driven by the possibility of the Nurses striking, which the Nurses have decided to do…
Nurses to strike for eight hours after breakdown in pay negotiations
New Zealand nurses have voted to strike after a breakdown in pay negotiations.
The eight-hour strike will occur on June 9 from 11am to 7pm and will include nurses involved in the vaccination effort – but not those in managed isolation and quarantine.
…to be honest, Labour strategists had already taken into account that the Nurses were going to go on strike. The dynamics of social media that have made NZNO workers more militant than their union is accepted so the nurses striking was a factor in the Pay Freeze feint but not as the masked Unionist claims, the main reason.
Nurses going on strike was always likely and it is happening as the budget is announced which is great.
Here’s the play.
TOVA: Prime Minister the Nurses want more money and are striking.
PM: It’s a balancing act Tova, we have just increased Welfare dramatically because the Poverty report said we needed to do more and we are committed to ending child poverty. We are negotiating with nurses for better outcomes but I’m not going to negotiate that though the media.
PM gets to raise Welfare while playing it off against public service pay rises. Middle Voters are confused and don’t know who to be angry with but will agree we should do something about child poverty.
Grant will find some money down the couch, Nurses will get offered 3% with a review in 2023 before the election and those same furious Union Bosses will all be flooding their social media with photos from Jacinda’s wedding come the end of the year.
The magic 8 ball reference was funny.
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