Welcome to our New President

In 2008 he became the youngest person ever elected to the PSA Executive Board, and for the last four years he has been PSA Vice President.

Benedict set up the PSA’s first ever youth network and is active in other union networks such as Out@PSA and the PSA Eco Network. Up until two months ago he was co-convenor of our local government sector committee.

For the past five years Benedict has been a fulltime PSA delegate at Auckland Council, the only fulltime local government union delegate in New Zealand.

Benedict replaces Janet Quigley as President. We extend our thanks to Janet for her extraordinary contribution over the past four years and wish her all the best for the future.

President's Message:

KIA ORA E TE WHĀNAU O TE PŪKENGA HERE TIKANGA MAHI

I am honoured to be writing this as your new President of the PSA.

I would like to acknowledge the candidates that ran alongside me at Congress 2020, Lusila Aiono-Tahaafe, Paula Davis and Marshall Tangaroa. I look forward to working with you as we continue the hard work ahead of us.

I would also like to acknowledge our immediate past president Janet Quigley who has led our union over the past four years. Your leadership, wisdom and determination has ensured we have achieved so much. I Iook forward to working hard to achieve more for our members.

I have spent my whole life fighting for the union movement. My values are grounded in the belief that everyone deserves dignity and respect, that there is mana in work, and that we should be involved in decisions about our working life.

Over the next two years I look forward to building a stronger union that will:

• elevate the voices of women, youth, Māori, and Pasefika. And when I say elevate, I mean genuine power sharing, where we actively work to remove barriers that prevent people from participating in decision making, and put the voices of members at the centre. We are a member-led organisation - it is from members that we receive our power

• use our collective voice to speak truth to power. We must use our political capital to enact outcomes we have sought for decades

• we must act now to create universal basic services to build a better life for our members. Fair pay agreements must become the norm, and equal pay claims must be settled and the ethnic pay gap closed

• continue to grow the membership and capability of our union. Since I accepted a leadership role on the PSA board in 2008, our members have grown from 50,000 to 77,000. I want to see our numbers grow to 100,000. But I also want to see our power as a union grow so that we can fairly, and effectively represent the views of our members.

We have the potential to exert great influence right now to change Aotearoa and improve working lives for the better.

Nō reira, tēnā koutou katoa

Benedict Ferguson