Will’s Word: Teachers and nurses striking, is this a sign of the times in this country?

Sometimes you look at what's in the headlines and think, “wow, this is Aotearoa right now”. Not in a, “look how far we've come way”, more in a, “look how much we've got to fix way”.

Right now it's teachers and nurses making the noise, two groups, two strikes, same message: they've had enough. In our schools the secondary teachers union says the government's offer of 1 per cent a year for three years - shocking - is the lowest in a generation.

They're asking for 4 per cent a year plus an extra bump in year one to make up for pay equity changes. It’s not just the money, we're already short 800 teachers apparently. The biggest changes to curriculum and assessment in decades are about to roll out and there just aren't enough subject specialists to deliver them.

Then on the other side, our hospitals. Nurses are gearing up for two full days of strikes in early September. They're calling for enforceable nurse-to-patient ratios, more staff when the workload spikes and a job for every new graduate.

Seems reasonable to me. They say patients aren't safe right now, not in the future and not if things get worse. As a patient of the past few days, I agree. What's the government's line you might ask? Strikes cause disruption.

But here's the thing, disruption is already here. Classrooms with no teachers, wards running on fumes, people leaving the jobs they love because they can't keep going on like this. Maybe that's the real story. These strikes are just the symptom.

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The bigger problem, we're a country with slow economic growth, wages that aren't keeping up with costs and more and more Kiwis packing up and heading overseas for better pay, better conditions and better futures.

We used to say New Zealand was the land of opportunity. But what does it say when the people who teach our kids and care for our sick don't see their future here anymore? What's there to look forward to if the people we rely on most don't feel valued enough to stay?

Teachers shape our children's futures, nurses hold our health in their hands and if they're telling us they can't do their job safely or fairly, that's not just their fight, it's arguably our fight too. It really riles me up that this is the state of New Zealand right now.

That’s Will’s Word.