Voting closed at the end of last week with PSA members voting to back the deal which by 2020 will deliver a new top base salary of $77,386 for inpatient nurses and $83,712 for community nurses. A pay equity claim for PSA’s more than 3000 nurse members is also to be negotiated during the new agreement’s term.
The deal also includes escalation pathways for reporting and managing acute short staffing, a reinforcement of the ‘zero-tolerance’ policy on violence in the workplace and a commitment to reasonable workloads. But PSA national secretary Erin Polaczuk said it was still looking forward to receiving the recommendations of the Mental Health and Addiction Inquiry and “much bolder steps towards addressing systemic, longstanding workload and staffing issues at the national level”.
Ashok Shankar, a DHB national organiser and bargaining advocate for the PSA, said the turnout to ratification meetings was ‘okay’ probably due to the long lead-in time and members being reasonably happy with the offer which 91 per cent of Auckland voters and 94 per cent of the ‘rest of New Zealand’ voters supported.
Polaczuk said the deal was significant for its members who worked “aboveand beyond the call of duty to provide health services under frequently difficult and stressful circumstances” as it included provision for PSA and management to agree to minimum numbers of staff in a workplace to provide safe and effective care. Also for an escalation process when additional staff are not available to as to protect both workers and patients.
Shankar said the union now had to sit down and talk with the parties and agree the best process for negotiating a pay equity claim with the DHBs’ now having accepted claims from NZNO, the midwifery union MERAS and PSA for the nursing and midwifery professions. Currently DHB registered nurses and midwives are on the same pay scale but MERAS, which represents the vast majority of DHB midwives, is currently urging its members to reject a DHB deal based on the NZNO offer saying midwives are not ‘nurses by another name’. MERAS also says the DHB has agreed to pay equity claims to be negotiated on an occupation by occupation basis.
DHB PSA mental health and public health nurse pay offer
But PSA national secretary Erin Polaczuk said it was hopeful that the recommendations of the Mental Health Inquiry – due to be delivered to the Government by the end of this month – would tackle these issues “head-on” and provide workable solutions that could be implemented “almost immediately”.
Voting starts next week on the DHBs offer to PSA nurses which mirrors the precedent-setting settlement between the 20 district health boards and the New Zealand Nurses Organisation made in early August after difficult and drawn-out negotiations. The offer to the about 3,500 mental health and public health nurses and mental health support worker members of the Public Service Association includes an agreement to work with the DHBs and ‘other union partners’ on a pay equity process for all members covered by the PSA nurse multi-employer collective agreement (MECA) with an implementation timeframe yet to be decided.
Polaczuk said the offer included financial recognition but issues such as short staffing remain.
“PSA members have regularly raised the issues around insufficient staffing and its impact on the quality of patient care and staff wellbeing. For far too long our mental health and public health nurses have faced unsustainable workloads and unsafe working environments.”
Ashok Shankar, a DHB national organiser and bargaining advocate for the PSA, said the the mental health sector continues to have major problems to fill existing nurse vacancies. He said pay increases may help attract more back to the sector but the sector could still face difficulties as there didn’t seem to the numbers out there to actually recruit.
The new MECA pay offer includes a commitment to the safe staffing and joint NZNO-DHBs Care Capacity Demand Management (CCDM) process. “We’ve also agreed to a process of engaging with the DHBs workplace by workplace to determine the number of staff needed to nurse safely. And an escalation process to deal with workloads when they reach an unsafe level.”
Violence and assaults on particularly mental health nurses have been an ongoing serious concern raised by nurses this year. A petition started by Nurse Florence, prompted by the assault this winter of a Christchurch mental health nurse, lists some of the violence nurses have been subject to in the workplace including broken bones, attempted strangulation, and being knocked unconscious.
Shankar said the MECA did have a clause on workplace violence and aggression including a process on dealing with that.
Ratification meetings are due to start on Monday October 8 and finish on October 26.
The first of the PSA nursing multi-employer collective agreements (MECAs) – covering all of the country except the Auckland region – expired on September 30 last year and the Auckland MECA expired in mid-December. The two PSA nursing MECAs cover workforces with a current combined annual payroll of around $217 million.
DHB PSA mental health and public health nurse pay offer
The pay talks for around 3500 DHB mental health nurses, public health nurses and support workers belonging to the Public Service Association got underway last year but were one of a number of talks stalled by the protracted negotiations between the 20 DHBs and NZNO.
Details of the offer are still to be released but it is understood to be similar to the precedent-setting offer accepted in early August by the NZNO’s DHB members. That offer was for a lump sum payment plus the equivalent of a 3 per cent pay increase per year, along with extra pay steps on the basic pay scales. It also included a stepped-up commitment to safe staffing and reaching a pay equity settlement ready to start implementing from the end of 2019.
Ashok Shankar,a PSA national organiser for the DHB sector, said ratification meetings were due to start around the country on Monday October 8 and the fine details of the offer would be available to members by Monday October 1.
He said it included a commitment from DHBs to pay equity for PSA nurses but the process was still to be sorted. Shankar pointed to the recent PSA negotiated $114m pay equity settlement for Oranga Tamariki social workers that will see an average lift in salaries of 30.6 per cent over a two-year period.
The first of the PSA nursing multi-employer collective agreements (MECAs) – covering all of the country except the Auckland region – expired on September 30 last year and the Auckland MECA expired in mid-December. The two PSA nursing MECAs cover workforces with a current combined annual payroll of around $217 million.
]]>He said he was always looking for good CVs from people with governance experience and invited those in the room with such experience to send their CVs to him.
Clark made the remarks in his opening address to the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) conference in Wellington this morning.
The conference, held at Te Papa museum, comes about a month and a half after nurses signed an accord at Parliament to implement a programme ensuring safe staffing at public hospitals.
It is also a little over a month since nurses signed the fifth pay offer from DHBs, bringing an end to nearly year-long negotiations.
The agreement includes three pay increases of 3 per cent, two of which took effect immediately. There are also two new steps at the top of the nurses and midwives scale to recognise the skill and experience in those roles.
Thousands of nurses around the country went on strike ahead of the pay agreement after successive negotiations had failed. It was the first nurses strike for almost 30 years.
In his speech today, Clark said 2018 would be a year remembered for a long time.
He said it was a year to listen to nurses’ concerns and address them.
“An agreement was reached that offered better pay, better conditions, and more support.”
Clark’s speech ran to the theme that access to healthcare is a human right.
“Every New Zealander should have the right to control their own health and make informed decisions with access to quality information, free from ambiguity and judgment.”
His priorities as minister were equity, child wellbeing, mental health, and primary health care.
“You, as nurses, are often a patient’s first port of call. You have the power to make an impact in all of those areas.”
The World Health Organisation estimated there would need to be 9 million more nurses and midwives in the world by 2030, he said.
Clark said nurses needed to be involved in health policy decision making and implementation.
“When nurses lead with their voice, there are a range of significant outcomes for people and communities.”
He recognised the “incredibly important and valuable role” nurses played in the system.
Clark wanted to see nurses represented in governance positions.
“I appoint a ridiculous number of people in my role. I’m always looking for good CVs from people with governance experience.”
He invited those in the room with such experience to send their CVs to him.
]]>The Equal Pay Amendment Billfollows the new Government withdrawing the previous National Government’s Employment (Pay Equity and Equal Pay) Bill 2017 –which had been widely criticised by the union movement – in November last year.
The New Zealand Nurses’ Organisation negotiated a process for negotiating a pay equity settlement – due to commence from the end of 2019 – as part of the collective agreement settled with the district health boards after a long and strained campaign including strike action in July.
Cee Payne, NZNO Industrial Services manager, said it was fitting that the bill was introduced on the very day 125 years ago that the hard fight for women’s right to vote was won. She said many years after a victory in the struggle for pay equity was also in sight.
The replacement bill is built on the recommendations of the original Joint Working Group on Pay Equity Principles and Workplace Relations minister Iain Lees-Galloway said it removed the ‘hurdles’ of the previous bill that would have made it too hard to raise pay equity claims.
Payne said NZNO, as the union and professional association with the largest female membership, believed it was essential that “good legislation is in place that enable all women to achieve pay equity and make pay equity claims, whether or not they are covered by collective agreements”.
She said once pay equity was established in the DHB sector it would set the benchmark for members in non-DHB employment. “Already we are seeing positive responses from employers in the private sector to the pay increases achieved in the DHB MECA bargaining, and this reflects a massive step forward for all nurses in New Zealand.”
]]>The NZNO DHB multi-employer collective agreement (MECA) – the largest and precedent setting MECA for the DHB sector – was settled at the start of this month opening way for negotiations to resume for the PSA’s two mental health & public health nursing MECAs with a combined wages bill currently of about $217m.
PSA DHB national organiser, Ashok Shankar said it had been discussing with DHBs an offer – similar to that offered to NZNO – for its nurses and support worker members and it was hoping to hear next week that the offer had received Cabinet sign-off and was ready to go out to members. Safe staffing moves and extra pay steps are understood to be part of the offer on the table.
The current NZNO Primary Health Care MECA expires today (August 31) and covers about 3000 NZNO nurses as well as administration staff, medical receptionists and some midwives. Talks are due to get underway next month with the New Zealand Medical Association (NZMA) representing most of the 530 general practices and other employers included in the MECA. One of the key issues will be pay parity with DHB nurses and NZNO’s proposed strategy of rolling out the still to be negotiated DHB pay equity settlement to nurses in other sectors, including primary health.
An offer is also expected shortly for the MERAS DHB midwifery MECA which expired at the end of July last year. MERAS co-leader Caroline Conroyco-leader – which represents most of the DHBs about 1,400 midwives – said positive discussions were ongoing with the DHBs over the new MERAS multi-employer collective agreement (MECA). In June she said MERAS had guaranteed its members “at least” the equivalent pay scale as that settled by NZNO but was also seeking a pay differential between DHB core midwives and registered nurses – which were currently on the same pay scale.
A DHBs’ spokesperson said negotiations were ongoing with a number of MECAs with each at a different stage and normal policy for the DHB’s negotiating representatives at DHB support agency TAS.
The Workforce Services Group at TAS provides support to the country’s 20 DHBs in negotiating the 21 national and regional multi-DHB collective agreements covering over 71,000 DHB employees.
Meanwhile the DHB MECA bargaining timeline has been updated by TAS to reflect the recently settled NZNO Nurses & Midwives MECA and the baseline annual cost of the NZNO settlement* has been revised from $1.707 billion to $1.906 Billion – an increase of just short of $200m.
*The estimated cost of settlement is calculated based on DHBs’ recent annual payroll data for the whole workforce potentially covered by each of the MECAs (i.e. includes non-union members).
]]>It follows the challenging DHB NZNO negotiations that saw resolute DHB nurses unite to take the first national strike in nearly 30 years over pay and safe staffing concerns – and ended with 64% voting in favour of a fifth DHBs’ offer following the signing of the safe staffing Accord and NZNO’s recommendation that further industrial action would not lead to extra funding for the deal.
The hui is being held on August 19 in Auckland by the newly-formed NZNO Members Action Group to discuss where-to-next for the NZNO members who expressed frustration on social media about the union’s responsiveness to members during and after the DHB MECA negotiation process.
Asked what lessons he believed NZNO could learn from the 2017-18 negotiation round NZNO chief executive Memo Musa said the union would be conducting its usual evaluation and review of the MECA negotiation process to look at what worked well and what could be improved on. “Particularly in regard to the growing climate of social media dialogue that took off during the negotiations”. And he said it would be engaging with members on how they would work together on planning the next round of negotiations – including the pay equity process – taking into account the review results.
Musa added that members have a wide range of views and the negative comments on social media had to be viewed with the context of the 64 per cent who had voted in favour of the final offer.
Action group spokesperson Danni Wilkinson said the group had about 400 members and was a ‘rank and file’ member response to unite NZNO members who had spoken out about their concerns on a number of the nursing social media platforms.
Wilkinson founded the Facebook page Nightingales Fight for Fair Pay in late May as a spin-off from the ‘Nurse Florence’-founded New Zealand, please hear our voice page. The page has 2800 followers compared to Nurse Florence’s 45,000 plus, and the longer-established NZNO Members & Supporters page (8200 members) and the New Zealand Nurses Organisation page (20,200 followers).
“I think if we don’t keep the momentum that we have gathered over the last six months – if we don’t keep that going we will go back to that apathetic – ‘the union doesn’t give a (toss) so why should I’ – attitude with people refusing to vote and just not paying attention to what is going on,” said Wilkinson.
“And we will sit on that for another ten years and flare up again. And I don’t think that’s healthy. I think we’re better to create the change and maintain our healthy union along the way rather than clash and fight every ten years or so – which is exhausting.”
“I guess we are at the point where there have been a lot of people talking – and it’s time to put up or shut up – if you are just going to sit in the background and whinge, whine and complain but not actually participate in creating the change that you want, then stop your whingeing.”
Musa said alongside the negotiations review NZNO was now turning to delegate and member education and communication about what the new DHB/NZNO MECA contains. “And show we will work together on the implementation and planning for the next round of negotiations including the pay equity process, taking into account outcomes from the review.”
He said NZNO was supportive of members being able to speak openly about the deal on social media. “However, what is disappointing and unacceptable on social media are the personal attacks on the negotiating team and process based on insufficient knowledge, evidence and facts about the technical aspects of the negotiation process.”
Musa said some of the comments had been unpleasant and unprofessional and directed at people “doing their utmost to deliver the absolute best for members” and who had to “personally dig deep” to continue in an environment where they suffered continual criticism from some members. He said the relationship between senior staff and many grassroots members remained strong. “NZNO gained the best possible MECA offer and we are now receiving many, many emails of thanks to the senior staff which had been heartening.”
Wilkinson said the action group was particularly keen to see change in how the upcoming pay equity negotiations were carried out and to have assurance that the negotiations would be backed by quality research. “The other concern that we have is that NZNO said repeatedly that the members are the union but there is definitely a strong feeling that that is not the case.” Wilkinson said she was aware of many members who felt that NZNO had prioritised the union’s partnership with DHBs over representing many members’ wish to push for a better offer or consider further industrial action.
But she said if members are wanting change from the union in return they also had to be ready to participate themselves. “They don’t have to be the workplace delegate – they can just be the person who helps the workplace delegate, collects signatures on petitions or offers other support so they are active participants. We are hoping if we can encourage 30,000 members to take a bit more interest then things will change from within for sure.”
Wilkinson said talking on social media had been great – while acknowledging there had also been some misinformation and confusion – but more action than social media posts and comments were needed to create the change that members had talked about.
“If our group finds that we don’t have enough support – and actually members are happy to just go back to work and tick along – then we (Action Group leaders) will keep looking at doing things through official channels – because we do believe there is a strong need for change and we will help guide that.” The group is also inviting people from other centres to join the Auckland meeting via teleconference.
]]>A number of nurses disappointed at the announcement on Tuesday at the fifth offer being accepted had posted on social media sites calling for NZNO to be transparent and release the ballot results.
Memo Musa, the chief executive of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation, said the decision to release the voting details came in the wake of “the large amount of social media comment suggesting NZNO had misrepresented the facts of the vote result” and following consultation with key NZNO staff.
“The percentage of votes in favour of the fifth DHB MECA offer as returned by Electionz.com is 64.1 percent to accept the offer and 35.9 percent to reject the offer,” said Musa in a statement released this evening.
“The previous offer result was 49.4% to accept the offer and 50.6% to reject the offer.
“As said last time the vote result was very close and this time there was a significant majority accepting the offer.
Musa said the union was now focused on implementation. “The organisation is strong and growing and I am proud of the hard work of my colleagues, the delegates and members that have undertaken to achieve a MECA which lays down the foundations for a safer and rewarding career in nursing,” Memo Musa said.
| DHB NZNO MECA Offer | ACCEPT | REJECT |
| 1st offer Nov 2017 | 43.4% | 56.6% |
| 2nd offer Mar 2018 | 27.0% | 73.0% |
| 3rd offer Jun 2018 (post-Independent Panel) | 30.7% | 69.4% |
| 4th offer Jul 2018 (pre-strike) | 49.4% | 50.6% |
| 5th offer Aug 2018 (post-Accord and strike) | 64.1% | 35.9% |
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Urgent work will be needed to convince weary and wary nurses – both those whose voted for and against the offer – that the deal will actually deliver on the safe staffing and pay equity concerns that saw thousands of nurses uniting on social media, marches and strike picket lines this year.
Cee Payne, the New Zealand Nurses Organisation industrial services manager, said the online ballot results showed the offer was accepted by a “significant majority” of members. NZNO would now start working with urgency to put the deal into action particularly the DHBs delivering on the promised extra 500 staff and implementing the safe staffing Care Capacity Demand Management (CCDM) system.
DHBs spokesperson Jim Green acknowledged there was a lot of work to be done and the 20 district health boards needed to give NZNO and members confidence that they would deliver on their staffing and resourcing commitments.
It is now over a year since the current NZNO DHB agreement expired. Voting began on the fifth offer just the day after a Government-brokered safe staffing Accord between NZNO, the DHBs and the Director-General of Health.
With a sizable minority of NZNO’s DHB nurses known to have rejected the offer – fearing a loss of momentum to push home their concerns on how stretched and close to crisis the workforce was – the DHBs and NZNO are on notice that some are now seriously contemplating crossing the Tasman and many are expecting NZNO to reform its bargaining process leading up to the next talks in 2020.
With emotions running high the Nurse Florence “New Zealand, please hear our voice” Facebook page – that helped unite nurses across the country – made the decision to go offline for 24 hours following the decision announcement. “We will be taking a break to let the outcome sink in and allow time for contemplation,” said the Florence Team’s post. It added “remember to breathe”.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Health Minister Dr David Clark welcomed the settlement but accepted that there was still more to be done to better support nurses. “While today represents a conclusion of bargaining it also marks the start of a long term programme to rebuild our public health system and the status of the nursing profession,” said Ardern.
Clark said the public consistently told him “just how good our nurses are” and they deserved a settlement that “recognises the particular challenges they face, including their limited pay scale and safe staffing issues”.
At the NZNO press conference NZNO president Grant Brookes paid tribute to the “sea of purple” as NZNO members united over their safe staffing concerns leading up to the historic national strike that brought home their message.
NZNO Kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku highlighted that there was “much more work to do” to secure decent pay and improved working conditions for non-DHB nurses including those employed by Māori & Iwi providers and those in primary health care, aged care and private hospitals. “We’ve a lot further to go for the profession of nursing.”
Green said the accepted agreement was a “substantial package to address the workforce issues raised by our people and part of a wider initiative to attract, develop and retain our vital nurses and midwives in their careers.”
An NZNO nurse at the press conference described the offer as “this is not the end – it’s just the beginning”. Another nurse when asked what difference she hoped the deal would make said she hoped she wouldn’t have to spend two hours trying to find nurses for the next shift and to have enough time to actually talk to her patients.
ACCEPTED DHB NZNO AGREEMENT
It was a jolly outing for my son, waving at the nice nurses who waved their placards back. New to the world of nursing, I learnt more over the months and years to come about the previous decade of eroded nurse leadership, pay and morale that had led to those ‘nice nurses’ walking off the job.
The Fair Pay campaign was launched in 2003 by NZNO, seeking a major pay jolt to bring nurses back in line with teachers and police and also, initially, mandated nurse-to-patient ratios to stop overloaded and distressed nurses leaving the profession.
The pay jolt was won in late 2004, but the trade-off was putting aside ratios for a Safe Staffing Healthy Workplace (SSHW) Inquiry, which evolved into the SSHW Unit and the eventual creation of the safe staffing Care Capacity Demand Management (CCDM) system.
Roll on a decade and the goodwill of the pay jolt had well and truly worn off and the snail-like place in implementing promised safe staffing was jarring more and more with stretched and stressed nurses. The nursing workforce kept growing and innovating, but at the same time the patients they cared for got older and sicker, the bed ‘churn’ ever faster, and the DHB budgets ever tighter.
Looking back, it is obvious that after a decade of simmering frustration, nurses were ready to say ‘enough is enough’. But when I first started reporting on these latest DHB NZNO negotiations in the winter of 2017 – and planning my winter holiday for 2018 – I didn’t envisage my week’s leave would clash with the first national nursing strike in just short of 30 years.
The roller-coaster year of negotiations is now over and was a tough one for all involved – the nurses, their leaders, their union and their employers. A decent deal was made, but the end was a ‘whimper’ not a ‘wow’ for the thousands of nurses who united via social media, marches and the strike picket line to bring home their concerns about their workloads, pay and the impact on the public health system.
All sides are now on notice that action is needed quickly to turn the deal’s safe staffing and pay equity promises into concrete steps that make real differences for nurses both at bedsides and in their bank accounts. Otherwise the ‘nice nurses’ could be marching again quite soon – and some may march off and not return.
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