Public hospital nurses voted nearly 75 per cent in favour of accepting a “sensible” 4.5 per cent pay offer stretched out over the next three years.
Lesley Harry, industrial advisor for the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO), said 23.4 per cent of its 25,000 district health board members voted on the deal and 73.5 per cent of voters backed the new multi employer collective agreement (MECA).
The previous NZNO DHB MECA expired at the end of September last year but the new deal only kicks off on March 1 2012 after boards declined to backdate the pay deal to October 1 last year.
NZNO members last year rejected a two-year deal that would have commenced on October 1 with a two per cent instant lump sum payment.
Graham Dyer, a spokesman for the 20 DHBs and the Hutt Valley DHB chief executive, said the ratified MECA was a “very sensible settlement” that reflected the current environment.
He said nationally the government was borrowing to meet spending commitments but it was still putting money, though more slowly, into the health sector, while internationally the United Kingdom was pulling “billions of pounds” out of the health system.
Harry, when asked whether the settlement was realistic in the current climate, said, “I think that’s the conclusion our members have come to”.
She said while it would have liked more than 23 per cent of DHB members to have voted, historically that was a reasonable turnout.
She said negotiators had gone for a three-year term after weighing up the benefits of a shorter time period and the risks from proposed legislative changes that would make it easier for employers to decline to take part in collective bargaining.
The deal starts with a two per cent pay increase from March 1 this year followed by a 1.5 per cent increase on March 1 2013 and a 1 per cent increase on March 1 2014.
It also includes a lump sum payment for enrolled nurses who make the transition to the new scope of practice and a commitment from district health boards to the care capacity demand management (CCDM) programmes.
Harry said the rollout of CCDM was going to be a priority for NZNO, which had just completed a two-day training programme for staff at the DHBs that are next in line for introducing the programme.
