Zizi Sparks: Why the nurses' strike is justified

Nearly 30,000 nurses from across the country are due to strike in June. Photo / File

OPINION

In a little more than two weeks tens of thousands of nurses across the country will walk off the job for eight hours - "absolutely furious" at the Government's three-year pay rise freeze.

I'm sure it is not a decision made lightly. As health professionals, many of these nurses would have got into the job to help people in their times of need and to save lives.

To walk off the job will have an impact and could mean procedures are delayed.

To make a decision to do so means the situation has become serious. A Tauranga nurse told the Bay of Plenty Times "every shift we work understaffed is leaving our patients vulnerable ... If we're willing to put up with it then we're saying leaving our patients vulnerable is okay".

David Wait, lead advocate and New Zealand Nurses Organisation union industrial advisor, previously said union members were angry and frustrated at the first district health board offer which would have seen most members get a 1.38 per cent pay increase.

He said members were absolutely furious at the Government's wage restraint announcement that no public servant earning over $100,000 could expect a pay rise for the next three years, and those earning between $60,000 and $100,000 would only get them in special circumstances.

While nurses are not the only public servants affected by this announcement, they have been the most vocal in speaking out against it, and for good reason.

At a time when much of the rest of the country went into lockdown to tackle Covid-19, nurses went to work, unsure if they would come across a patient with Covid-19. They kept our health system ticking over.

And as the nation went back to a sense of normality, nurses were at managed isolation and quarantine facilities testing and treating people. Now, as the Government vaccine rollout is well under way, who do you think is administering these? Nurses.

To effectively freeze the pay of nurses earning between $60,000 and $100,000 is a kick in the guts, unfair, and fails to acknowledge the work nurses have done in the past 18 months or so.

Public Service Minister Chris Hipkins said the sector needed to show restraint, as others in the private sector continued to feel the effects of the pandemic, and the move would help preserve public sector jobs.

A person earning $60,000, with no student loan, contributing 4 per cent to Kiwisaver, takes home just shy of $880 a week.

Nurses have a vital role to play. They should be valued accordingly. So when they walk off the job on June 9 I'll be backing them. Because nurses are the backbone of our health system.