22/10/2025
Community Pharmacy Standing with the Super-Strike
Thousands of essential workers will take to the streets to demand fair pay, safe staffing, and sustainable funding.
Community pharmacy won’t be among them — but we’ll be cheering loudly from behind the counter.
Why can’t we join?
Under NZ law, pharmacists must hold effective control of their pharmacies. That means pharmacist owners are company directors — and if we were to coordinate a “strike,” it could be called collusion.
It’s the same safeguard that Eric Crampton recently labelled a “cartel.”
But what it really protects is public safety — it ensures the person responsible for your medicines is a health professional, not a distant executive chasing profit KPI.
So while others march tomorrow, community pharmacists will keep the doors open — not because we don’t care, but because the system makes it almost impossible for us to stand together in protest.
We see you. We stand with you.
And we’ll keep doing what we’ve always done — fighting for sustainable funding, a supported workforce, and safe, local care for every whānau. 💙💪
