credit: New Zealand National Party

A picture speaks a thousand words.  Quote:

[…] National leader Simon Bridges claimed that the new Government had seen more strike action than the previous National Government experienced in nine years.

“After less than nine months of this Government 32,000 workers have been involved in industrial action, or signalled their intention to be – compared to just over 27,000 that undertook strike action in the entire nine years of the previous Government,” Bridges said.[…]  End of quote.

The latest to strike are the Inland Revenue Department and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.  Quote:

More than 4000 public servants at Inland Revenue (IRD) and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) will take industrial action next month, after an overwhelming vote to strike.

The Public Service Association (PSA) have confirmed that after a ballot of members at the two government departments, members had voted for a proposal for two two-hour stoppages on 9 July and 23 July.
PSA national secretary Glenn Barclay said the action was first “co-ordinated strikes” in the public service for many years. For IRD, it would be the first industrial action in 22 years.[…]

[…] Meanwhile the PSA has described IRD’s technology projects as “a mess”, which was having a major impact on staff.

PSA national secretary Erin Polaczuk said the decision to take action shows they are at the end of their tether.

“Our members take their jobs very seriously and they’re trying desperately to keep the system on track while [IRD] presses ahead with its business transformation project which will see one in three staff let go by 2021,” Polaczuk said.

The PSA gave details of the problems as they confirmed the action, claiming IRD’s systems were not equipped to process the best start tax credit, which should give lower income families an extra $60 a week for each child.

The payments are due to start next week.

“It starts on 1 July, and members are told they will have to process this manually, drastically increasing their workload,” Polaczuk said.  End of quote.

It would seem the incoming government chose a random date to implement their $60-a-week-per-child election bribe, without checking first with the IRD that it was achievable. Now the payment will have to be processed manually. Did I fall down a wormhole and go back in time to 1960?

I’m not sure how paying them more money is going to decrease the workload, and going on strike will surely make it worse. It’s funny how the unions always strike for more money and give a completely nonsensical list of reasons that more money is never going to fix.f