On the eve of nationwide strikes by nurses, meat workers, teachers, and staff at IRD and the Ministry of Business and Innovation have all threatened strike action.
Opposition leader Mr Bridges has estimated 81,000 staff have been involved, or are considering, strike action this year.
''After less than nine months of this government 32,000 workers have been involved in industrial action, or signalled their intention to be, compared with just over 27,000 that undertook strike action in the entire nine years of the previous Government,'' he said in a statement.
However, Council of Trade Unions' president Richard Wagstaff said Mr Bridges' claims business and the economy would be stifled were incorrect.
''The lid's been blown off what National presided over ... working with people protesting sits uncomfortably with Mr Bridges,'' Mr Wagstaff said.
Despite a multitude of recent surveys indicating flat or declining business sentiments, Mr Wagstaff said the NZX was ''doing well'' - hovering at record levels for the past fortnight, and describing the current ''business sentiment'' surveys as being part of the political cycle.
Mr Wagstaff cited the same negative business sentiment abounded immediately after Helen Clark and Labour won the 1999 election, when surveys at the time ascribed ''massive discontent'' from businesses with the Labour-led government.
''In countries with liberal and democratic laws, their businesses do better than those without,'' he said.
Mr Bridges cited repeated disruption to businesses by bus drivers, cinema staff and port workers, and difficulty for the public to access services such as healthcare.
Nurses and health boards are still in mediation, while industrial action has been signalled for July 5 and 12, for the first time in three decades.
Mr Wagstaff was asked whether the government should not have considered settling with nurses first, as opposed to announcing the $2.8billion funding for free fees at universities and polytechnics and $1billion for its Regional Development Fund.
The last offer to nurses, since rejected, was worth about $500million, and no advance on that figure has been made public by the government.
However, Mr Wagstaff said the nurses' pay claim was a process of negotiations.
''The general public agree nurses have been grossly underfunded for years. [And] internationally it's been recognised women haven't been treated well,'' he said.
He was asked why industrial action was so much more prevalent under the Labour-led government.
''It's time after more than nine years of changes and suppression of people's rights under National that people now feel they are able to stand up for themselves,'' Mr Wagstaff said.
Mr Bridges predicted the situation would ''only get worse'', once Labour's proposed employment law reforms were implemented, which he said were ''specifically targeted'' at strengthening unions.
