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Laboratory workers at Middlemore Hospital are standing firm in their plans to resume industrial action in the face of threats of suspension.
"We intend to continue with the limited industrial action. It hasn't intimidated the members here at all," Medical Laboratory Workers Union national secretary and Middlemore employee Bryan Raill said.
The action is set to start at the Counties Manukau District Health Board tomorrow after several strikes since December in pursuit of improvements to pay and conditions at 15 boards and the Blood Service. The union also wants a collective agreement extended to laboratories that take over health board work.
Workers will refuse to perform certain tasks, including doing only those tests initially ordered for a patient and not any extra tests a doctor might subsequently request to be done.
Unionised lab workers at the West Coast board are planning similar action.
The health boards say it creates an "avoidable element of risk for patients which we are not prepared to carry".
But Mr Raill said it did not put patients at risk, because other treatment options were available. If the boards really thought patients were at risk they would have sought wider union cover to maintain life-preserving services, but had requested it for just one aspect of the tasks unionists were refusing to do.
The health boards say they have offered an 8.5 per cent pay rise over three years and that private laboratories say they do not wish to be a party to a collective agreement oriented towards health board work.
