Up to 8000 in-demand water workers are being offered pay rises to stay, as Aussie recruiters take advantage of uncertainty over Three Waters reforms
There are high points, like hooking up a water tanker to the hotel hosting Portugal's women's football team this year, so they didn't return from a critical pool match to find they had no water.
There are literal low points, down a trench and copping abuse from residents unhappy at their water being cut off.
It's a job Jamie Innes-Thompson loves – but like many other water services workers, he's been tempted by repeated and lucrative opportunities in Australia.
Yesterday, unions endorsed a new multi-employer collective pay agreement for about 8000 council water workers whose jobs are scheduled to shift over to 10 big new regional water corporations, starting in July next year.
READ MORE: * Water assets to be moved to new council-owned firms * Three Waters boss recruits staff as other executives quit
As the law stands, it's understood that 8736 roles would transfer from 67 councils and council-controlled organisations to the Labour Government's 10 new corporations.
But that's complicated by the incoming government committing to repeal the Three Waters reforms and, if that happens, the new pay rises won't be worth the paper they're written on.
The problem is worsened by an exodus of workers, frustrated at years of uncertainty, which has left 1332 (15 percent) of the 8736 roles empty.
A key objective of the new collective pay deal (which includes a 4.5 percent pay rise and five weeks annual leave for workers like Innes-Thompson) is to stop the departure of workers across the Tasman. It applies to 1850 unionised workers, but will also be available to the 6000 staff who are on individual contracts.
"Without water assets on our books, we're looking at about 21 rates rise. With the water assets still on our balance sheet? I don't even have that number yet. It's astronomical. It's going to be a huge hit." – Moko Te Pania, Far North mayor
The Act Party's local government spokesperson Simon Court criticised Labour for introducing a compulsory multi-employer collective bargaining arrangement for water service entities that don't yet exist, in the final days of their government. "It was a desperate play to push through their unpopular reforms before an election, as Act was advocating strongly to scrap Three Waters and implement a more localised and flexible approach," he says.
“Both Act and National have signalled we will be focused on getting rid of Three Waters and replacing it with sustainable funding and financing arrangements which eliminates co-governance over publicly owned assets ... A new government will outline their own policy directives and objectives and Internal Affairs will need to work to attain those."
Smaller communities, in particular, are worried about the loss of labour and expertise. Far North mayor Moko Tepania says they're already struggling to recruit and retain talent, even in the beautiful north. "Any added pressures in this space is not going to help us in any way shape or form.
"We're the third largest geographic district in the North Island serving a population of 75,000 people who are split over 40 settlements. We have 16 wastewater treatment plants and eight water treatment plants. With the socioeconomic makeup of our population, it's already a massive struggle to fund."
"I've been doing Three Waters for so long that it feels like I'm sitting in my corner on the stool, and the bell's about to ring for round 12. And I know I'm either up for a beating or I'm gonna get knocked out." – Brian Cadogan, Clutha mayor
With no certainty about whether they'll still have these expensive water and wastewater assets on their books, and still no government, the Far North District Council is drafting up two different long term plans.
If the water infrastructure is taken off the council's balance sheet, the council will have to impose a rates rise of about 21 percent. If the council remains in charge of its water assets and responsible for renewing them, the rates rise is so high that Tepania can't yet put a number on it. "It's astronomical. It's going to be a huge hit."
At the other end of the country, Clutha mayor Brian Cadogan agrees. His council has 3500km of water pipelines, but only 6000 urban ratepayers to fund their upkeep.
He too is frustrated at the protracted fight for certainty. "I've been doing Three Waters for so long that it feels like I'm sitting in my corner on the stool, and the bell's about to ring for round 12. And I know I'm either up for a beating or I'm gonna get knocked out – I don't know which one it is. But it ain't good. I can hear the 'ding ding'!"
After undisclosed differences with the Christchurch-based water contractor Citycare that had been managing water services for Clutha, the district council has now terminated the contract and brought its water services back in-house.
That's entailed hiring 60 people, and massively increasing its payroll commitment, at a time when water services workers are near-impossible to recruit and retain. Paying them more is unavoidable, Cadogan says.
Innes-Thompson, of Tainui, welcomes the pay rise for workers in his Auckland-Northland region – he says it will help him keep his workmates and his water reticulation services team together. Though the job offers from Brisbane and Sydney have been tantalising, he and his wife Hannah want to stay close to whānau in Auckland.
"It's been a long time coming. Because it's been a real struggle to make the industry attractive to young people, and also to people who are experienced in related trades, it's not really an attractive industry."
But one of his colleagues in Tuakau is taking the bigger money available in Australia. Twenty-seven-year-old water operator Dylan has just given notice – he's upping sticks, with his wife Ashleigh and their two dogs, and moving to Queensland.
He says Australian recruiters on LinkedIn first approached his brother, who also works for Auckland's Watercare. He referred the recruiters to Dylan. They offered him $25,000 more, tipping his salary into six figures, a relocation package, and career opportunities at a new $400m water treatment plant in Ipswich.
The new plant produces 66 million litres a day of treated water, and is ramping up in readiness for the 2032 Olympic Games in neighbouring Brisbane. And at the weekends? He and Ashleigh can choose between the beaches of the Sunshine Coast or the Gold Coast. "The Gold Coast is more our style," he says.
The Water Services Entities Amendment Act, which was passed just before Parliament rose for the election, provides for multi-employer collective bargaining for water services entity workers.
While the rest of the country was in campaign mode, the Amalgamated Workers Union, E tū and the PSA brought the Department of Internal Affairs to the negotiating table.
Even though the new water entities don't yet exist, they were represented by Jon Lamonte, chief executive of the transitional Wai Tamaki Te Hiku water entity for Auckland and Northland, as well as three bargaining agents to represent the interest of the other nine entities.
This is unusual, as the statutorily-appointed bargaining agents were negotiating on behalf of organisations that don't yet exist, are meant to be independent of government, don't have any confirmed budgets to pay for the 8000-plus roles – and will never exist if the National Party is true to its word and repeals the Three Waters legislation in its first 100 days.
But it's not unprecedented: when the Auckland Super City was being established, bargaining agents represented the Auckland Transition Agency to negotiate collective pay agreements for workers in the new amalgamated council and its council-controlled organisations. So, for long-serving Watercare workers, in particular, this is not unfamiliar.
Heather Shotter, who is executive director of the national transition unit at the Department of Internal Affairs, says the use of bargaining agents recognises the fact that only the northern entity is on track for imminent opening; the start dates for the other nine are staggered over the subsequent two years.
The Department of Internal Affairs and the northern water entity are bound by the Water Services Entities Act and the Employment Relations Act, she notes. That meant they were required to meet the unions and negotiate a pay deal, even in the shadow of the election campaign.
"With unions initiating bargaining, there is a duty to conduct that bargaining in good faith under the existing framework," she says.
Lamonte has, however, now paused all recruitment activity for the new Wai Tamaki Te Hiku northern entity, awaiting direction from the new minister. Before the election, he'd been shortlisting applicants for his top table roles like chief financial officer.
A 4.5 percent pay rise and five weeks annual leave have been negotiated for any workers transferring to Wai Tamaki Te Hiku. That's a tad above the Reserve Bank's projected consumers price index inflation rate for July 2024. There are no specific retention payments, despite provision for them being written into the legislation.
The pay rises for the other entities haven't yet been agreed – and Shotter emphasises none of this binds the new government. "Application of the agreement remains subject to decisions by the incoming government."
The unions haven't got everything they sought from the three-year deal. Hamish McCracken from the Amalgamated Workers’ Union says they were unable to get retention payments over the line, or a more generous KiwiSaver contribution to help counter the 12.5 percent superannuation contributions made by Australian water utilities.
Like council leaders, the unions and their members are frustrated at the ongoing uncertainly about the future of the water reforms and the water services providers.
"The status quo is seen as broken by almost everyone who works in the sector," McCracken says. "More certainty for the people in the industry, and for the people who are turning the taps on – that would be good."
"The impact in terms of council debt, in particular, make progress within the sector next to impossible. Moving forward with the 10 entity model (and of course the option for some entities to merge for economic reasons) offered some certainty.
He says water users will be the losers, if the new government goes back to a status quo in which councils operate their own water and wastewater supplies.
"I think it's a shame if we do throw the baby out with the bathwater here ... There's a huge amount of good work being done and I see no reason why we should go dramatically backwards.
"I think the real risk of the incoming government's hands-off approach is that some areas will simply be unappealing to their neighbours and left out in the cold. There is a very real risk that we’ll get widely different levels of provision and while services to the public will suffer in general, some places like the Far North or Clutha will find it next to impossible to go it alone."
He says the investment required in the infrastructure of such small councils, with small ratepayer bases but big geographic areas to service, will make them unappealing to their neighbours when they seek to coordinate or combine their services. "With an ad hoc approach there is less scope for shared services which offer some very real economies of scale," he adds.
"The smaller councils, particularly the isolated ones, really struggled to pay staff appropriately and retain them, as well as to train them."
