An earlier teachers protest in Wellington. Photo: RNZ / John Gerritsen
Workers hitting the picket lines in this week's mega strike will have the full support of the public, says the Labour Party.
Tens of thousands of teachers, doctors and nurses will walk off the job on Thursday, demanding better pay and working conditions.
Labour's workplace relations spokesperson Jan Tinetti said the public would understand workers did not want to walk off the job.
"They don't use that right to withdraw labour easily and they feel like they've been backed into a corner with this government.
"So I think that [the] general public will very much understand the point of view of these workers and will side with them."
The coalition has been battling with the unions for months, having put what it says are reasonable offers on the negotiating tables.
Public Services Minister Judith Collins issued an 'open letter' to the public yesterday, claiming the industrial action was "politically motivated".
"If they're not working together on it then why is it all happening on Monday? The same day?" Collins asked.
"Clearly this is organised, clearly this is coordinated and clearly it's coordinated and organised to cause the most disruption to the most New Zealanders."
The minister said the coalition had acted in good faith at the bargaining table and described the looming strike action as " unfair and unwarranted".
She singled out the secondary teachers union in her letters, questioning how serious it could be about reaching a deal when its top agenda item for a ministerial meeting in early October was Palestine.
"The thing with that meeting is in the end it didn't go ahead... the union was very clear as to what it wanted on the agenda, which was Palestine and some other things, but [the] first thing was Palestine, and I think that's the that tells us everything we need to know," Collins said.
Post Primary Teacher's Association president Chris Abercrombie said that was not the full story.
"The minister's office said they didn't want to talk about terms and conditions; they said they wanted to get agenda items that weren't related to active bargaining.
"This was after they cancelled the meeting and we had four items. Palestine was one of them. We also had NCEA changes, AI marking and curriculum."
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director Sarah Dalton said striking was less than ideal, but so was the status quo.
"I'm really sorry if people will miss out or have delays to their care on Thursday but that happens every single day and the government says nothing about that and refuses to address it.
"So what we need is for politicians to listen to clinicians because they have got lots of ideas about how we can improve access to care.
"Until that happens we will continue to struggle and until we have appropriate levels of resourcing into core public services like health and education, people will continue to miss out."
Public Service Association national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons was highly critical of Minister Collins' open letter, saying it had only made the stand off between the government and unions worse.
"The minister's inflamed the dispute and the government has only itself to blame for the strikes because they have failed to listen properly to the concerns of health workers about safe staffing, about keeping themselves and patients safe and delivering good care.
"If the minister really wants to help, they should empower the employers to come to the table with a decent offer so that the disputes can be settled."
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