Hospital staff to strike as talks fail

Thousands of hospital workers will walk off the job on Monday after rejecting a last-minute offer by their health board employers.

The strike of 10,000 “allied health” workers in district health boards will begin at midnight tomorrow and last 24 hours, their union, the Public Service Association, said.

Hospital workers under the “Allied Health” multi-employer agreement include laboratory and anaesthetic technicians, oral health therapists, alcohol and drug clinicians and sterile sciences technicians.

They don’t include doctors, nurses or midwives.

The union rejected a district health boards offer yesterday.

“We made it clear to the employers that if an offer was made that honoured the Employment Relations Authority report, we would recommend it to our members,” PSA organiser Will Matthews said.

“Yet what we have received today is a kick in the guts. To blatantly disregard the ERA facilitators’ recommendations is not only a moral failing, but an act of bad faith.”

The ERA recommendations have been confidential, with only the negotiating teams able to see them, Matthews said.

The district health boards had refused their requests for the recommendations to be released, he said.

The PSA wanted negotiations to be handed over to Health NZ and the interim agency “as we have lost confidence in the Ministry of Health”.

Health NZ, announced by the Government this year, will take over the planning and commissioning of services and the functions of the existing 20 district health boards, with the Ministry of Health focused on policy, strategy and regulation.

Without a guarantee of fair pay, allied health workers would again vote on sustained strike action through June and beyond the establishment of the new Health NZ, Matthews said.

The strike follows more than 18 months of negotiations between the parties for a new collective agreement including, from Monday this week, work-to-rule plans, with staff refusing to work more than their contracted hours, and taking all breaks they were entitled to.