PHC MECA Update 11 June 2020

Kia ora koutou

As you were aware we again held negotiations on Wednesday 10 June, but the employers indicated they were not able to increase their offer. They said they could not do so without additional funding, but were very clear that pay parity is absolutely needed.

It is very disappointing that we have not yet gained the required Government funding.

The next stage in the negotiation process is to access mediation, which has been confirmed for Monday 29 June. This gives us a narrow two-week window during which to apply further pressure to the Government to come to the party and appropriately recognise the value of PHC nursing staff with the additional funding needed.

As we said in the media earlier this week, PHC nurses are tired of hearing statements from the Minister and DHBs that they are employed by private providers and their pay is therefore not negotiated with the Government or Crown entities.

"They see this as a cop-out, particularly given there was a post-Budget pledge of more funding to early childhood centres (private providers) in recognition of their value and of their importance in the recovery from COVID-19. That’s a great outcome for them and it shows the Government can address pay inequities. There are clear parallels and we would like to see a similar solution found.

“Without additional funding, the only other way to resolve recruitment and retention issues would be to pass the additional costs on to the consumers and patients. This is not a responsible solution and clearly not in the interests of every community in Aotearoa New Zealand."

What next?

It is vital that all of us fully participate in and take ownership of the campaign activities leading up to Mediation.

Petition

Firstly we need to increase the petition support within our communities. 7500 is a good start but we need more as we know from the messages received already that there is huge support out there that we need to capture.

Some of your employers have already signed the petition and we will be discussing ways they could extend their support for this.

PHC Nurses are Seeing Red

We want to demonstrate that PHC Nurses really are Seeing Red as they do not have pay parity and we need this to be very visible in the next two weeks,

Therefore, on Friday 19 June we will be requesting all NZNO members in PHC MECA worksites to wear something red to work and dress up your workplaces in red.

We will provide templates of posters and some more suggestions early next week. We want photo opportunities to maximise our media coverage, so start discussing now with your colleagues what your red participation on the day will be!

We do expect your employers will support this activity as it is already evident that pay parity is a shared issue which must be fixed right now.

We will soon be issuing another media release detailing our intended actions for what should be a simple issue to fix!

Ngā mihi

Your NZNO negotiation team: Chris Wilson, Mike Yeats, Karen Smith, Sarah Redpath and Denise Moore