A district health board pay deal – rejected by the largest nursing union, the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) – is still being considered by Public Service Association nurses.
The PSA, whose 14,000 DHB members include about 4000 mental health and public health nurses, was the only one of the three major unions in the joint talks to ratify the initial deal.
As Nursing Review went to press, the PSA and DHBs were discussing settling an agreement based on the initial offer of a two per cent lump sum payment (at the expiry of their current agreement) and a 2.5 per cent pay rise 12 months on from that date.
Boards spokesman Graham Dyer, the Hutt Valley DHB chief executive, said the boards were looking at accepting the PSA’s ratification of the initial deal and “moving ahead with that”.
NZNO industrial advisor Lesley Harry said tentative dates had been set for talks in November after a majority of members voted to reject the joint deal.
She said the main sticking points were the lump sum offer and the lack of progress on rolling out safe staffing initiatives. But members also wanted financial recognition for senior nurses’ professional development and the enrolled nurses’ new scope of practice, along with equality of conditions for casual staff.
Ashok Shankar, national PSA organiser, said PSA members had given the initial deal “overwhelming support”, including strong nursing support, with 80 per cent of mental health and public health nurses in Auckland, and 76 per cent of nurses across the rest of New Zealand, voting in favour.
Unlike the NZNO multi-employer collective agreement (MECA), which has now expired, the PSA’s two nursing MECAs do not expire until May next year (for the rest of New Zealand MECA), and in July for the Auckland MECA.
Shankar said the issue for the PSA was whether it would be in a better bargaining position when the agreements expire next year or whether it should seek a settlement now.
Issues affecting that decision included proposed amendments to industrial legislation that could have an adverse impact on union bargaining power.
Harry said she did not believe the PSA ratification of the initial deal undermined NZNO’s stand. “I think the environment that the PSA is in is quite different to ours currently. I believe that their members are feeling quite vulnerable as far as reviews taking place throughout the state sector.”
Dyer said the boards have told the NZNO they were interested in returning to an “interests-based” approach to bargaining that both parties had used before.
Asked whether NZNO’s adversion to lump sum payments would be an issue he said both parties would go into the talks in good faith.
He also said the boards had made a “slight modification” to the joint offer to the Service and Food Workers Union, so it now included casualstaff.
