Nurses reject 'pay jolt' and consider strikes

By MARTIN JOHNSTON

State sector nurses have rejected a $329 million "pay jolt" offer and are talking of possible strike action after a breakdown of negotiations.

Their employers - the 21 district health boards - say their offer of increases ranging from 6.1 per cent to 27 per cent over three years is fair and as much as they can afford.

But the Nurses Organisation, the union for the 20,000 nurses, midwives and health care assistants, says the offer does too little to close the pay gap between nurses and police and secondary teachers.

At stopwork meetings last week, members instructed the union to obtain a better offer or give notice of industrial action.

But a Nurses Organisation manager, Laila Harre, said last night the union would not initiate strike action until all other options had been tried.

The health boards' offer would progressively lift the basic salary of a new graduate nurse from $31,294 in Auckland to a $40,000 national rate in 2006, creating the first national nurses' pay deal for 13 years.

Registered nurses at the top of the five- or six-year scale would rise from $45,000 in Auckland now to $53,000 nationally. The percentage increase for nurses outside Auckland would be greater as they are on lower rates.

Overall, rates for registered nurses would rise by 18 to 27 per cent, those for enrolled nurses by 9.2 per cent, and those for health care assistants by 6.1 per cent.

Ms Harre said the boards' declaration yesterday that they could not improve their offer and their determination to go public with it amounted to a breakdown in talks.

It was now unclear what would happen at the next scheduled talks on September 21.

She said the risk of industrial action had risen, but the union still hoped to avoid strikes.

When asked what the options were for avoiding strikes, she said union representatives would provide an analysis of the dispute directly to the Government.

"Hopefully some pressure will come from within the DHB establishment and within the Government to settle down and get on with a proper negotiation."

The boards had multiple-counted annual increases to come up with a cost of $329 million for their offer. The union calculated the offer would ultimately boost pay by about $170 million over present levels.

"We think the current offer is about three-quarters of the way to what might be an acceptable settlement."

It did too little for lower qualified enrolled nurses and health care assistants and even highly experienced nurses would be paid nearly $13,000 less than a similarly experienced police constable in 2006.

Boards' spokesman Jim Green, chief executive of the Tairawhiti board, said it was a good offer that would help attract more people to nursing and keep them in the job because it gave increases of more than 20 per cent to the most experienced nurses.

He said the boards employed the equivalent of 15,715 fulltime nurses and in June, 656 of those positions, 4.2 per cent, were vacant. The pay offer exceeded present health board funding but the Government had supported it.

The offer was not a pay equity settlement. "It's a pay jolt or a move on to the fair pay claim NZNO put in front of us for nurses and midwives."