Health workers take strike to streets
A chorus of honking car horns rang out on Monday morning, as passing drivers showed their support for protesters lining the road outside Nelson Hospital.
The orange-clad Allied Health workers were impervious to the persistent drizzle as they waved flags and brandished signs at passing cars: ‘‘Thank-yous don’t pay the bills’’ one stated, ‘‘essential yet overlooked’’ another read, ‘‘we’re worth more than this’’ said yet another.
The workers were among about 10,000 Public Service Association (PSA) members nationally who walked off the job for 24 hours on Monday.
The workers cover 75 different specialities, including lab technicians, dental assistants, social workers, smokefree services, and alcohol and drug clinicians.
The strike will be followed with two weeks of industrial action.
The goal is to get district health boards to adopt the recommendations of the Employment Relations Authority in an ongoing pay dispute.
Negotiations have been going on for 18 months, and a pay offer on Friday was rejected, after the union said it fell short of the ERA’s confidential recommendation.
DHBs spokesperson Keriana Brooking said the offer was ‘‘comprehensive’’ and the strike was avoidable.
Local strike organiser Ian Hoffmann said in Nelson-Marlborough there were about 300 PSA members impacted – 220 at Nelson and 80 at Wairau.
He expected about 150 people to participate in the two-hour protest, which kicked off at 8.30am.
It was time for a fair deal, and the workers were ready to fight for that, he said.
‘‘They’re fired up, they’re not going to take it any more.’’
The only PSA members working were those rostered for ‘‘life preserving services’’, Hoffman said,
‘‘They’re very much out here in spirit with us.’’
Some nurses were standing alongside the protesters in solidarity, and in the hospital windows orange hearts could be seen, posted by staff inside showing their support.
Nelson social worker Monique Swart was brandishing a sign at passing cars.
The health workers gave ‘‘so much of themselves’’, she said.
‘‘We are people who do this with our hearts, and that doesn’t mean that we can keep on working without being valued ... at the end of the day we need to pay our bills and life is very expensive.’’
A social worker since 1985, Swart moved to New Zealand from the Netherlands and accepting that she would have to take a pay cut to work here, she said.
She loved the work and was grateful to have a job, but ‘‘enough is enough’’.
Dental assistant co-ordinator Danielle Willis said the Allied workers ‘‘deserve more’’.
‘‘There doesn’t seem to be any recognition in the pay that we’re given.’’
The hospital would not run without their work, she said.
Health promoter Miraka Norgate works in smokefree and Māori health and said they were asking the public to ‘‘support what we’re entitled to’’.
Nelson Marlborough Health Allied Health director Hilary Exton said the impact on services was still being assessed, but five surgeries and 22 dental appointments were postponed.
The impact was lessened by dual union coverage in the region and advanced notice of the strike allowing for appointments to be rescheduled allowing ‘‘as minimal an impact as possible for patients’’.