KEY POINTS:
Auckland City Hospital cleaners want to join hospital nurses in receiving extra pay for weekend work and warn they will take disruptive strike action if necessary to win their demands.
Around 100 Service and Food Workers Union members protested outside the hospital yesterday as part of a national strike from 11.30am to 1pm.
The strike by 2800 orderlies, cleaners, cooks and other support workers employed by district health boards and contract companies caused little disruption, as intended, but longer strikes are threatened next year.
Talks between the union and the employers are scheduled next month.
Sarah Williams, a union delegate and cleaner, is employed by British-owned contracting company OCS.
She has had the job for four years and is paid $13.30 an hour, without higher rates for overtime or penal rates for weekends. She works Sunday to Friday.
"That's why I fight for a Meca [multi-employer collective agreement], because we need penal rates ...
"I need more money to feed my kids and grandchildren.
"Saturdays I go to church. Some Sundays I work double shifts but it's not time and a half."
She and her husband, Laki, live in a Housing New Zealand home in New Lynn with their four children, a daughter-in-law and four grandchildren.
Mrs Williams is the only earning member. Some receive benefits and she gets $35 Family Assistance weekly. Her after-tax pay is about $465. Her largest bills are $180 rent and $170 towards a car.
The union says the strikers' pay rates are mostly $10.25 to $12.50 and wants a rise to $14-$16, although the health boards say the rates are typically $12-$13.
Yesterday's strike was because the employers rejected the union's demand for a Meca to replace 44 collective agreements. Nurses and doctors have Mecas, but the boards say that is no reason for giving one to support workers.
OCS managing director Kevin Mulcahy said the union had agreed to forgo penal rates at Auckland City Hospital in return for extra holidays but refused to give further details.
The company would pay its cleaners more if the organisations it served paid it more, he said. But the company had to compete for contracts in which price was a leading factor in who won.
In Wellington, meanwhile, Service and Food and nursing unionists delivered a petition, signed by 30,000 New Zealanders, to Parliament calling for better pay, staffing levels and training in elderly care.
Caregivers in the sector are usually paid between $10.25 and $12 an hour.
