Kia ora koutou We have now had eight days of negotiations and we have made progress on several of our wellbeing claims. We have in-principle agreement on the following items, which means that these will be included in the terms of settlement for a new collective once the negotiations are over. However, we still have a long way to go… Agreed clauses
Key provisions which have not been agreed so far… Your negotiating team is committed to achieving a settlement that ensures SMO/SDO pay reflects the value of your work. Our salary claim supports this. The DHBs are offering no salary increase this year. This is not acceptable to us. Another sticking point has been the conversation about work at night. Call it what you will - anti-social hours, work at night, after hours. Most of you are required to work at night from time-to-time, or often, as part of on call or shift rosters. It has always been the case that remuneration for this type of onerous work, which occurs while most people are sleeping, is higher than for daytime work. We already have a recovery provision in the MECA, although our discussions with members suggest that there is still much to be done to ensure it is implemented in every service. Payment arrangements to cover work done at night are also variable. We argue that, while some services have decent arrangements in place, the bottom line (MECA minimum) is no longer sufficient or appropriate for the demanding work many of you do overnight. The employers think the best way to deal with this is by putting $15 million into a two-year working group called “tracking towards transparency”. This group would come up with a set of proposals about how to move forward. Your MECA negotiating team disagrees. Our experience of “working groups” has not been positive. We do not see them as a mechanism to resolve bargaining issues. The money would be better spent on medical consultants, not business consultants. We already have ample evidence showing the cumulative effects of medical workforce shortages, onerous working hours, and work at night. What we need, particularly given ongoing workforce gaps, is decent remuneration for the demands of work at night. We also need a workforce sufficient to ensure you all have access to existing MECA recovery and non-clinical time entitlements. We know that we’re not going to see all the workforce gaps recruited to in the short term. So, the fair and reasonable thing to do is for employers to remunerate the workforce we do have, for the demanding work you continue to do. What happens next? The DHBs have asked for some more time to review their position. We have agreed to this and will meet them across the table at the end of May. We will give you another update on how the negotiations are tracking after that round. Ngā mihi. Lloyd Woods |