T
his paper discusses the strategies adopted by public sector unions following the restructuring of the New Zealand state in the 1980s and the industrial relations reforms of the early 1990s. The discussion is placed within the context of a consideration of the nature of public sector industrial relations and the role of strategy in trade union activity. The paper focuses on the mobilisation of occupational and professional identity as an industrial strategy by unions in the education and health sectors as a counter to the processes of decentralisation and marketisation of public services, the adoption of managerialist modes of organisation and the individualisation of employment relations in the state sector. Limited comparison is made with the problems faced by unions operating in tbe core public service. The paper is based, in part, on interviews with representatives of various organisations involved in this adjustment to the state sector reorganisation and the changes wrought by the Employment Contracts Act. The paper is a temporal case study as well as a case study of organisational and strategic adjustment.
