Kevin Bunker

From a working-class Waikato family, Kevin joined the PSA in the 1960s as a Statistics Department cadet, becoming a delegate and later a member of the national executive. He worked closely with our very influential General Secretary Dan Long.

In 1975 Kevin became Bank Officers Union Assistant General Secretary, in 1979 advocate for the Post Primary
Teachers Association and then General Secretary from 1986 during a time of considerable change; David Lange’s “Tomorrow’s Schools” reforms were followed by the Bolger National Government’s Employment Contracts Act after 1990. Kevin help steer the PPTA through this tumult and also worked in the Combined
State Unions and then the Council of Trade Unions to salvage and protect what was possible from this
onslaught against unions.

Kevin was instrumental in the fight against bulk funding of schools; the key building block for national pay settlements, including the agreement ratified in recent weeks.

Kevin initially retired to Levin to grow walnuts with his late wife Denise, but he returned to union organising for the PSA in the Central Districts for health and local government members. Members remember him for building strong union structures and developing delegates and mentoring them.

He is survived by his daughters Lorell and Jocasta and grandchildren Zavier, Paris, Daniel, Sienna, and Isabella.

Mike Farrell

Mike was born in London in 1943 and his family moved to British Columbia after the war where he developed his abiding love of rock and roll from the US Top 10 Hit Parade programmes beaming in from Seattle.

Aged 20 he travelled to New Zealand and settled in Wellington. The Ngauranga Freezing works became his alma mater - he was engrossed in the working class culture of the meat industry and an active union member. One of his key mentors at the time was Ken Findlay, who has also recently passed away.

In 1973 the works closed following a long period of strike action over redundancy compensation and Mike moved to Palmerston North with his wife Fay and the first of their five children for work at the Longburn Works. An active delegate, working closely with Roger Middlemass, when Longburn closed in 1989 he joined the Trade Union Education Authority (TUEA) in the Central Districts.

TUEA was disbanded in the wake of the Employment Contracts Act and Mike joined the PSA initially training
delegates on the State Sector and the Employment Contracts acts and then as an organiser for 20 years, working with members primarily in the core Public Service. In later years he also represented meat inspectors, a group he had a close affinity with. He retired in 2013.

With thanks to John Shennan

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