Your views: What the bishop said to the strikers

Anglican Bishop Richard Randerson has spoken out about the radiation therapists' strike.

But is he right and should he speak out?

>> Read his views

>> Send us your views

Here is the latest selection of your views:

Shahil Chand

I applaud him. This is not a religious issue as some have pointed out. This is a moral one (whilst religions teaches about morality, they are obviously not entirely one in the same). He is basically saying what most of us are thinking, except he is in a better position to get noticed. The important question here is: how many other significant figures have taken this step to promote morality in this issue?

John

Yes. The Bishop has every right to speak out. Good on him for doing so.

David Archibald

Is the good bishop suggesting that the government be trusted to set up a remuneration system for its essential employees? There is plenty of evidence to the contrary if he chose to seek it. The radiotherapists are seeking a pay increase less than half the inflation rate (compare that with the prime ministers recent raise). Perhaps he feels health professionals are immoral to seek payment for their work. Perhaps he feels they should take all sustenance from the great humanitarian works they perform. It is not so long ago that we were regaled with the issue of lack of staff causing radiotherapy waiting list blowouts, I wonder what was the cause of the shortage surely not the pittance wages that professionals in New Zealand Public health are paid. A country that passes laws colonizing an essential industry then failing to protect its workers is the real moral issue. If the bishop looks about he might see that other more powerful influences affect New Zealanders health and they have no qualms about how the exercise their powers(for example the government's cynical obfuscation of is role in damp homes). Morals like ethics and church doctrine are dangerous phantoms to play with. The bishop should keep to his small book.

Bryce Lamont

Thank God the Bishop has spoken up about the issue. How can the government of this country sit back and allow this type of strike action? Meanwhile cancer patients get bumped down the list, fobbed off and told to go elsewhere if they can afford it. Cancer patient dont have the option of waiting around while government dispute somebodys pay packet. .The morale of these patients is highly vital to the outcome of their various treatments. The government needs to take responsibility for its citizens & allowing industrial action to step in the way & place lives at risk is another indication our country is slipping towards third world standards. I can understand the radiologists needing to initiate action to be able to get any results but I think this should be done some other way without impeding on any patients treatment or any service level which struggles at the best of times to keep up. Perhaps they should have initiated a Court action/ claim instead? I would be ashamed to have any part in allowing this type of action which directly affects so many vulnerable people.

Matthew Brown

Radiologists use taxpayer bought machines to save lives darling.

Why won’t they go to work, Mummy?

Because they want more money love.

Money?

Yes darling.

But why?

That’s just the way it is love."

Will Grandma have enough money when she goes to hospital tomorrow?

Grandma isn’t going to hospital tomorrow love.

Will Bishop make them go to work for Grandma?

People wouldn’t listen to him, darling.

Why, Mummy?

Because he’s the Bishop.

Linda

I think he can say what most of us are thinking! I appreciate the need for pay increases over time, although I do not know their current rates or requests. I do not think that striking, and playing with peoples lives like that is the way to go. Doesnt really prove a point as it could in other professions. I think its careless, and bordering on negligence. Negligence is surely a breach of their contracts. People who are suffering from cancer, and their families, have enough mental and physical problems to be dealing with, without having to be concerned if their treatment will happen when scheduled. When the first person dies, due to unnecessary delays caused by these strikes I really do wonder how extra money in ones pocket will be able to help those people sleep at night! There must honestly be more mature ways to handle these things. The health minister should have stepped in before now! This is dragging on for far too long and putting extra stress and risks into the lives of people involved.

Julie Phillips

It seems curious that the bishop blames health workers for failing to provide care for illnesses that, in his world at least, are part of Go’s great design! Perhaps the bishop is as hard to take seriously upstairs as he is in this situation.

Barry Baines

It is about time somebody spoke out about the risks both physical and mental of the strike. Our political leaders, if that is what they can be called, seem to have no opinion and are doing nothing to assist an agreement or take a moral stance. I totally agree with the church making a stance in defending patients from the attitude of DHB and unions.

Spady Te Pou

Yes he is right in what he is saying, Just because he is the Bishop does not mean that he cannot have an opinion. Because he is a Bishop he gets attention from the media, Other people have been expressing the same thing through the letters to the editors in some of country’s newspapers and yet powers that be do not listen to them. What makes you think that they are going to listen to the bishop? There needs to be some serious head banging in the Government hospital Boards and nions if they want to resolve this issue.

Nick Gibbs

Anyone is entitled to their views and is entitled to publish them in the public domain. The paper is entitled to print those views should they wish. Others are free to disagree. A clerical appointment doesn’t bar you from having your say.

Rodney Burns

We all know that religion should not interfere with things of secular nature,but,at times we also realise that the people concerned,or should be concerned about what is happening,,dont set the example.When we look at the behaviour of the people in Government, who are supposed to set an example,and show some positive leadership and guidance for us all in the matters of our health,are themselves only interested in either,their own agenda,or the monetary gain that they can gain for themselves, How can we expect others to behave differently? I as a New Zealander,feel great sorrow at the state in which things have become,human life has become second to money. It seems as though the DHPs and the Radiologists have lost sight of what they are really there for,and why they are there,and why we have a government who boasts that they have so much revenue they dont know what to do with,they are morally deficient,and good on the Bishop for speaking out.

Florimari Mattos

The Bishop is right. Any Leader be he/.she religious or political, should make the voice heard while caring for the community.laws about right to strike should be reviewed in New Zealand. For example, in Brazil, essential services need to be carried on, like hospitals, laboratories, elecommunications and others, that means a minimum percentage of workers is maintain all essential services running while others represent the category with the Union, Employers, protests, etc. No matter what is the issue, life is a right for everybody.

Alan Johnson

Whilst I hold no particular religious beliefs, I applaud Bishop Randersons stand. Having gone through the trauma of having my wife battle breast cancer and undergo what were very severe treatments was bad enough. To have had the additional impact of any delays at that time, would have been indescribable. I feel for anyone who is currently having their treatments delayed or disrupted due to these strike actions. At least Bishop Randerson has the guts to question all members of the system and their part in not providing people the treatment they urgently need. In my view, none of them can justify their actions and its an indictment on how far New Zealanders have moved away from our commitment to provide the best health support possible.

Michael Draper

How refreshing to read Bishop Richard Randersons words and to realise that there is at least one caring intelligent person living in this country. If only we could hear such words from our Prime Minister who instead seems happy to hide behind the incompetent health care managements systems that she herself as head of government is ultimately responsible for. Perhaps she has nothing to say because she doesnt know what to do? In that case may I suggest that she and the Bishop swap jobs for a while?

Joe Metcalfe

Its about time. The churches of New Zealand have for too long now stood aside from the morale issues in this country. Their voice is strong in the community and they have the power, and with it the responsibility, to affect moral decisions and actions being made in New Zealand. I have no faith or believe except that which I have in people.

A G Fairweather

Good on the Bishop, but his opinions are directed at the wrong people. Starting with the waste of space Minister of Health and those on Hospital boards who are overpaid and really impede the treatment of others with their narrow focused agendas..The whole health system is in disarray and until we get a Minister who actually is not impotent, patients are going to continue to suffer.

Angus Ogilvie

The Bishops comments are welcome. I share his view that patients must be at the centre of the health system. I am not in a position to comment on the merits of the strikers’ pay claim. However, strike action, or the threat of it, is becoming all too common in the hospital system. One wonders whether or not it is being contemplated as a standard course of action, to put pressure on employers in the sector, rather than as a last resort. Quite apart from morality, what effect does this action have on the true meaning of professionalism? Let us hope that the health workers concerned think again.

Errol DSouza

The bishop is absolutely within his rights as a citizen of this country to air his views. He has in no way indicated that the church he represents is taking a stand against the strike. All he is referring to is the human element of empathy and care that should be brought to the fore in dealing with patients under the dire need of life-saving radiation. Let us not confuse his title with his personal opinion.

Graham Keye

Bishop Richard Randerson seems to be taking the moral highground here. If the Bishop is so worried, why does he not give up the trappings of his position and help the sick and unwell for free? He seems to think thats what the workers should be doing. Why does the church not give more money ie: sell off their property portfolio, or is the money involved to great to do this? Besides, when people went to certain Churches to complain about sexual abuse, was the Bishop speaking loud for the victims then or keeping silent for the protection of the priests and church?? Where were the morals then?

Joan Daviss

Unfortunately, healthcare workers in NZ have almost no recourse other than striking to try to get raises which at least match CPI. Arbitration is a joke in NZ and is not a viable option: the rules force the judge to choose the offer by either one side or the other, and do not allow the judge to set a compromise agreement somewhere in between. Our healthcare workers are paid less than those in any other developed country in the world! When the government refuses to give them even CPI increases (whilst giving DHB members raises far in excess of CPI), it’s no wonder they are leaving in droves to go work in Australia. Instead of condemning the healthcare workers, the Bishop should be condemning the Government and the DHBs for refusing to give them reasonable wage increases.

Peter Sykes

The Bishop, God bless him, is not challenging the workers but the lack of adequate Government care of the wellbeing services. Resourcing of people and services to provide fundamental services is an underlying issue in juggling a Government surplus but some quite frivolous enterprises when core services starve while many of these services don’t create wealth or income they provide the foundation for a safe and confident humanity.

Di Goodwin

People over money, yes! The working poor , thats people whose net income is so low that they have literally nothing left over after paying just the necessary bills (housing basic food water power). So support the immediate release of a portion of Government surpluses into the pay packets of Public Healthcare workers so that all of the people involved are being valued over money and profits.

Bruce Miller

Unfortunately it appears the Bishop does not understand the problem that NZ Workers now find them selves in. With the Employment Contracts Act and then the ever so slightly watered down Employment Relations Act NZ Workers, especially those effectively forced onto individual contracts can no longer strike or obtain a fair increase for inflation each year. I personally was on $49,000 at the end of 1999. I am, in 2007, still on less than 50,500. In over 6 years I had had a increase of 3.06 per cent that is not fair bargaining when you see what the CPI has done in those 6 years. The NZ Government has sold out to the companies and shafted the workers. It is the prime reason so many go one way to Australia. The Employment Contracts Act or its watered down version need to be completely abolished as soon as possible. Unions need to be given more power to allow fair bargaining to occur for all Workers, not just those in Collective contracts. Those on Collective contracts should be able to choose to go back on a collective contract with the same remuneration and conditions as an individual contract that their Employer has offered them. I deserve more than 0.5 per cent increase each year when the CPI increases around 3 per cent each year. The Bishop should be attacking the Government which allowed NZ companies to exploit NZ Workers for the las 7 years to an unreasonable level that is becoming worse each year. Not all NZ companies are bad. Some, like Telecom, are now bad and unreasonable employers,that need to be forced to be reasonable to both their Workers and their Customers.

Chris Randal

The Bishop should have perhaps castigated the employers whose sole purpose in this matter appears to be to fail to reward the workers for their qualifications and dedication. It is interesting that DHB members have recently been awarded an increase in their remuneration!

His Grace should ponder the results if the employees give in to the employers heavy handed tactics. Perhaps the therapists might all resign and move to better paid, more satisfying jobs offshore?

Nienke

No, it's not wrong for the bishop to speak up. I'm glad that somebody finally did. People working in healthcare, especially those giving life-saving treatments as radiation therapy should not be allowed to strike. They should find other ways to protest. It IS immoral to withhold treatment for cancer patients, who may suffer dire consequences later on all due to someone wanting some more money. If I was a therapist, and a patient would suffer negative consequences because I was on strike, I would not be able to live with myself.

Janet Mellor

It is Emmerson's cartoon that describes this issue succintly and accurately. The Bishop calls the workers immoral - that description belongs to those who have the power to improve pay and work conditions for healthcare workers. The Bishop is showing the results of living in his castle.