Nurses vote to go on strike

About 30,000 hospital nurses – including ones administering the Covid-19 vaccine – are to go on strike over ‘‘horrific and unsafe staffing conditions’’ amid news of no pay rises for three years.

The New Zealand Nurses Organisation announced the plan to strike yesterday.

More mediation is due on Tuesday and Wednesday but, if it goes ahead, the strike will take place for eight hours on June 9.

It comes amid a nationwide nursing shortage, with nurses and doctors already fearful people will die at over-stretched emergency departments during the busy winter months.

NZ Nurses Union industrial adviser David Wait said nurses were ‘‘angry and frustrated’’ after the majority were last month offered a 1.38 per cent pay increase – lower than inflation at 1.4 per cent – while most senior nurses were offered less than half a per cent. However, the Government’s May 5 pay announcement that public servants earning between $60,000 and $100,000 could only expect pay increases in ‘‘special circumstances’’, with the permission of the Public Service Commission, had caused further frustration.

The Government later softened its position and said it would review the policy and consider cost-of-living increases for public servants on moderate incomes.

But Wait said the announcement would ‘‘effectively freeze’’ nurses’ wages for three years and there was no clarity over what the special circumstances were.

‘‘The vast majority of our members are within that $60,000 to $100,000 band,’’ he said. Still, the decision to strike was ‘‘huge’’ and a last resort, he said.

District health board (DHB) nurses last walked off the job for 24 hours in 2018, which meant up to 8000 planned procedures had to be rescheduled.

Nurses had been working under ‘‘horrific and unsafe staffing conditions’’, Wait said. Many nurses were diverted to work in managed isolation and quarantine, and now the vaccine rollout, which added pressure to an already stretched workforce, while some had left to work in Australia after the bubble opened.

‘‘There is a wider nursing workforce issue. We don’t train enough nurses to replace the ones that are leaving and we rely heavily on internationally qualified nurses. We have had quite a few people going to Australia,’’ he said.

‘‘An already stretched workforce is now at breaking point.’’

Members working in managed isolation and quarantine would not participate in the strike, Wait said, but those working as part of the vaccination rollout would go on strike.

The nationwide strike will take place on June 9, 11am-7pm, and further strike action was not ruled out.

Dale Oliff, the spokeswoman for all DHBs, said it was committed to resolving pay talks to avert the strike action but said the boards would ensure patient safety should it go ahead. An eight-hour strike would not have a significant impact on the vaccine programme, she said.

But the DHBs believed their offer was fair and reasonable. It included a $900 lump sum payment for 85 per cent of nurses and midwives, excluding the most senior nurses, midwives and nurse practitioners. Their offer also includes increases of up to 11 per cent for healthcare assistants and enrolled nurses whose rates are at the bottom end of the pay scale.

Health officials have been asked to approve a repatriation flight for stranded New Zealanders in India which could get citizens home by the end of the month. Indian Newslink editor Venkat Raman said travel agencies he had spoken with were ready to go. He said pressure on the Government to make a decision on charter flights was building. The news came as the Indian community gathered in Wellington on Thursday night to discuss the issue. Gurtej Singh, who was at the meeting, said some people were managing to leave but it was not easy. ‘‘I know one case where he had to fly to London, then to North America and from there made his way to Auckland.’’ And with commercial airlines remaining uncommitted to recommencing flights, Singh wanted authorities to arrange charters from India to New Zealand. - RNZ