Hospital workers protest over pay

Jill Ovens

Hospital workers will mount picket lines outside most public hospitals today to protest against a Government edict that they cannot have a pay rise.

The 2700 orderlies, cleaners, kitchen workers and security guards belonging to the Service and Food Workers Union have a starting pay rate of $14.62 an hour, or $30,410 a year for fulltime workers.

Waikato District Health Board chief executive Craig Climo, who leads the negotiating team for their employers, the district health boards, said the Ministry of Health had told the boards that there was no money to raise any pay scales this year.

He said the service workers were the "first cab off the rank", but the same edict would apply to nurses and other groups except under "very limited criteria in areas of exceptional performance, productivity gains, that type of thing".

"These are staff employed on service contracts where each year you simply go up a step, so there isn't provision in these agreements to recognise performance," he said. "They are not well-paid people. They do earn their money. Nevertheless, they are paid something like 15 per cent higher than the minimum wage."

Union northern regional secretary Jill Ovens said the previous Government allocated an extra 3.1 per cent for district health boards this year and it should be passed on to workers.

"The Minister of Finance has indicated that this wage freeze could go on for as long as five years," she said.

"This is coming from a man who earns $250,000 a year, which means he has no idea how anyone can live on $14.62 an hour."

But Mr Climo said the 3.1 per cent increase was to cover all impacts of inflation on the health boards' budgets, including the cost of service workers moving up to higher grades with each year of service.

Service workers plan pickets outside 32 public hospitals from Kaitaia to Invercargill at lunchtime today. Mr Climo said enough staff would stay on duty to maintain normal operations.