Disability care workers and Māori services provider step back from industrial conflict

Disability care workers and supporters at a PSA rally in Auckland on Sunday to protest a threat by Te Roopu Taurima to suspend workers who engage in a "low-level partial strike". Photo / Sylvie Whinray

Care workers at the country’s largest provider of Māori-based support for people with disabilities have reached an agreement with their employer that will avert strike action and their suspension without pay.

Bargaining over their collective agreement broke down last week. That led the Public Service Association (PSA), which represents the 38 affected workers, to inform the employer, Te Roopu Taurima, that it would begin six weeks of “low-level partial strike action” on Tuesday.

Te Roopu Taurima is an independent trust providing services to people of all ethnicities with intellectual impairments in Northland, Auckland, Waikato and Canterbury.

The workers are employed as kaitaataki, or frontline care managers.

The trust responded to the strike notice on Friday afternoon with a letter to the union, telling it that the workers would be suspended without pay for the duration of the strike.

On Sunday, the union held a protest rally outside the employer’s Auckland offices. PSA general secretary Fleur Fitzsimons told the rally the suspension notice was “a huge overreaction to low-level industrial action”.

But on Monday the two sides agreed to re-enter mediation. The union has withdrawn its notice of strike action and the employer has withdrawn the notice of suspension, along with an earlier lockout of extra time.

The proposed strike and suspension arose after the trust rejected recommendations of the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) following four days of mediation.

Fitzsimons told the Herald the workers would refuse to do “some paperwork” and other “low-level tasks”.

A spokesperson for the trust said, “In response to this action by the PSA, we had no option but to advise staff of our intention to suspend any workers who participate in the strikes starting on Tuesday, in order to ensure continuity of services to the tāngata in our care.

“Our sector faces serious funding and operational challenges, and we remain committed to working constructively and in good faith with the PSA towards a fair and equitable agreement.”

At Sunday’s rally, Fitzsimons said, “There is no more important work than ensuring that people with disabilities can lead full lives with dignity and be supported.”

PSA general secretary Fleur Fitzsimons addresses disability care workers and supporters at a rally in Auckland on Sunday to protest a threat by Te Roopu Taurima to suspend workers who engage in a "low-level partial strike". Photo / Sylvie Whinray

But, she added, the PSA has been bargaining with the trust since August last year and there have been “full strikes, partial strikes and an oppressive ongoing lockout of additional hours since December”.

The ERA had spent four days this year “trying to get the parties to agree on a fair outcome”. The authority had issued a recommendation to settle the dispute, “but it didn’t settle it”.

Although the PSA “didn’t get everything we wanted”, the union’s bargaining team accepted the plan “and agreed to recommend that our members accept it”.

However, said Fitzsimons, “Te Roopu Taurima has refused to accept the recommendations of the authority.”

On Sunday night the trust told the Herald, “The Employment Relations Authority’s recommendations are not binding on parties, and in making them the authority noted that further mediation may be required. Te Roopu Taurima has requested the PSA attend further mediation to discuss these matters in good faith and work towards resolution, however it has so far declined to do so.”

By Monday afternoon, however, both sides confirmed to the Herald they had agreed to new mediation, which will begin within two weeks.

Te Roopu Taurima kaitaataki earn a salary of $70,500 a year and are claiming a pay rise in line with inflation. But the dispute is about more than pay.

Fitzsimons said at the rally workers could be faced with “harsh and unfair” working conditions amid not receiving a pay rise that would support their “wellbeing”.

She added Te Roopu Taurima was “obsessed” with imposing 90-day trials on new staff.

Fitzsimons called 90-day trials “hideous”, because they “allow workers to be sacked for no reason at all”.

“They leave workers questioning themselves, their own worth and their future. They are cruel and unfair and no human being should be subject to them.”

Disability care workers and others at a PSA rally in Auckland on Sunday to protest a threat by Te Roopu Taurima to suspend workers who engage in a "low-level partial strike". Photo / Sylvie Whinray

Te Roopu Taurima was established in 1999 as part of the “deinstitutionalisation” of many healthcare services, including those for tāngata whaikaha, or disabled people. Its goal was to provide “kaupapa-driven service delivery”.

The trust’s website says this was “a direct response to a system where tāngata whaikaha were institutionalised, and resided in a service environment that was deemed insensitive to Te Ao me ngā Tikanga Māori (Māori world views, customs and practices)”.

Being kaupapa driven, it says, involves whanaungatanga (engagement), tika (correctness and quality), whakapono (trust), aroha (kindness) and kia mārama (transparency).

The trust says these principles inform its work providing residential and vocational support, respite care and support for caregivers, high and complex needs support and mental health services.

Fitzsimons paid tribute yesterday to the work of the trust.

She told the protest, “Te Roopu Taurima was groundbreaking. It is based on kaupapa Māori values.”

But she claimed “their latest behaviour towards their own staff is undermining this proud history”.

Asked about this, the trust said, “We remain steadfast in our duty to ensure the sustainability of our organisation, the wellbeing of our kaimahi, and, most importantly, the best outcomes for our tāngata, in line with our organisation’s values.”

This dispute is not the first time the trust has come under scrutiny.

In 2014, Winston Peters, leader of the NZ First Party, raised questions about its spending practices. Maori Television’s Native Affairs ran a series of programmes, which were followed by investigations by the Serious Fraud Office and forensic accountants at the Ministry of Health.

This story has been updated to reflect the new agreement between the two sides to re-enter mediation.

Simon Wilson is an award-winning senior writer covering politics, social issues, urban planning and the climate crisis, with a focus on Auckland. He joined the Herald in 2018.