Fleur Fitzsimons: The fight for public servants and switching off with Billy Joel

Sunday, 15 December 2024

Acting Public Service Association national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons has spent the year fighting against job cuts and restructuring in the public service as it underwent one of its biggest overhauls in decades. Anna Whyte reports.

Fleur Fitzsimons leans forward, arms crossed, Christmas earrings dangling from her ears. We’re here to talk about her, her job, her year.

But she’s not keen to talk about that.

Fitzsimons has been in the media before, it’s not new for her. But 2024 saw her name pop up again and again as she publicly criticised public service job cuts to a frequency of, at some points, daily and fronted legal fights against agencies.

Fitzsimons has worked a variety of roles at the Public Service Association (PSA) - the union for public servants - as a media advisor, a legal officer and as the assistant secretary. After last year’s election, when she unsuccessfully ran in Rongotai, she walked straight into planning meetings for the PSA.

“There was no doubt in my mind that I was coming straight back here, and it was really important to me to get straight back into it,” Fitzsimons tells the Star-Times.

“We immediately had an all staff national video conference where we started planning our response to the incoming government because we knew that their agenda would be against the values and interests that are so important to this union.”

That was back in 2023.

Roots trace back to Labour

Previously a Wellington City councillor, the Public Service Association is her home, first starting there in 2005.

That was after serving as the NZ Student Association union co-president alongside Labour’s former general secretary and the 2023 chief of staff Andrew Kirton.

Prior to that Fitzsimons, then a political law student from Hastings, headed Victoria University’s student body, taking over from now-Labour leader Chris Hipkins. Fitzsimons’ links with Labour continued through her working career.

She was the Labour candidate in the 2017 Wellington City Council by-election to replace former Labour MP Paul Eagle, winning the seat and serving another term until 2022.

After Eagle lost the race for mayor in 2022 former Green chief of staff Tory Whanau and walked away from politics, Fitzsimons was announced as the Labour candidate for his seat, losing to Green MP Julie Anne Genter.

‘We're fighting every job loss’

You can see the responsibility Fitzsimons holds for public servants weighing on her shoulders.

“I just felt a real obligation or responsibility to make sure that we were fighting for them, and we're fighting every job loss.

“We have spent hours reading change proposals from the employers which attempt to dismiss workers with really no basis, and has shown complete disregard for the value of the work that our members do.

“There was a time where it was just change proposal after change proposal… I never expected it to be so large and so little regard taken for the nature of the work that people did.”

It’s the responsibility that gave her drive this year.

“The job losses have personally devastated some people. They have been embarrassed or ashamed of losing their job, and it’s caused huge upset and distress within their family and their community, and some of them blame themselves. So part of our job is making sure that no public servant blames themselves for losing their job.”

The Government embarked on an overhaul of the public service this year, stopping work programmes, reducing spend across the board and slashing contractor and consultant expenses.

At the Star-Times’ last count there had been about 4000 roles cut, though the real number is likely higher and they shouldn’t be confused with real people in actual jobs as opposed to vacancies. In addition, new roles were created by agencies along the way.

Public Service Minister Nicola Willis said in November that “we have seen the public service really successfully put in action our mission of shifting resources from the back office to the front line”.

“Just within our first year, we've seen the Public Service take to heart the need to provide more care with how they drive value from taxpayers’ money in successfully making those reductions in spending, which had got really high and really unsustainable.

“We've seen a real focus of public service on the targets which the Government has set on thinking creatively about how we can make progress towards them, and being prepared to really focus on results for people rather than just processes.”

Willis said it was “irresponsible for the last government to let numbers in the Public Service build up so high in back office roles when that was clearly not going to be sustainable”, and that agencies were holding open vacancies to “give themselves their own flexibility”.

The critical win

The significant Ministry of Education, Employment Relations Authority Ruling was “a highlight in an otherwise difficult year”, for Fitzsimons.

In June, the ministry paused its change process to cut hundreds of jobs after the PSA filed legal proceedings in the Employment Relations Authority (ERA). Then in July, the ERA ruled in favour of the PSA.

“What was happening was a mass dismissal of hundreds of workers with little regard or no regard for their individual circumstances,” Fitzsimons said.

“Winning that case was critical for injecting some dignity for those workers. But I also know from a number of conversations with senior leaders across the public service that many of them looked at that case and thought, I must do things differently, I don't want to be in the same case, in the same boat as the Ministry of Education.

“It had a much wider impact as well.”

It was thought at the time it would prolong the process by making the ministry consult on a case-by-case basis. The ministry was still working through the change process.

As of October, MoE had a decrease of 270.6 full time positions since June 2024, which did not include vacant roles.

Behind Fitzsimons, sitting in the Fujitsu Tower on the Terrace, was a beautiful view of Wellington’s harbour. But in front of Fitzsimons was a whiteboard full of PSA strategy.

She’s facing another massive year.

Change in the public service isn’t over, and strike action is brewing.

“We're already seeing strike action at the New Zealand Defence Force, Christchurch International Airport with the firefighters there, Te Roopu Taurima, all strikes happening right now, and we've got a strike ballot going out for the Ministry of Business, Innovation, Employment.

“There is a lot of bargaining in the core public service under way in the coming months, and we will be standing up for fair treatment of our members. We are not going to accept a government agenda that sees people go backwards.”

Fitzsimons says she’s energised.

While senior photojournalist Robert Kitchin directs Fitzsimons to look into flashes of light, Fitzsimons is thrown a question about what she does outside work. She lights up. It’s music, plugged in at the gym - Billy Joel, Rod Stewart, Miley Cyrus - it makes her feel like she’s in a nightclub.

Asked if she thinks she thinks she would have as much impact as an MP compared to in her role now, Fitzsimons says she has not given it much thought.

“I'm firmly focused on standing up for public servants, but also the public services that they deliver. I'm not someone that sort of dwells in the past. I haven't really given it too much thought. I just want to get going really.”

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