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A new strike next month by laboratory workers will inevitably put patients at risk and increase delays for elective surgery, senior doctors say.
Some 1200 members of the Medical Laboratory Workers Union went on strike for seven days in November and December, causing massive disruption at hospitals.
The strikers were from many district health boards, several private laboratories and the Blood Service, but the effects of their action were felt nationwide because of the central place in health care of lab testing and blood products.
Their action followed strikes by other health workers.
Now the union has issued a notice of a 48-hour strike, from 8am on April 11, after what it calls the stalling of negotiations with the employers.
The Waitemata District Health Board's chief medical officer, Dr Allen Fraser, said two days would be easier to cope with than seven, but the strike would still be disruptive.
"One group of patients carries the burden - the patients who have elective surgery. It just keeps being put off. It just carries on. We don't make up the lost ground."
The last strike led to the postponement of more than 1000 operations, Auckland City Hospital was restricted to 10 per cent of its usual capacity, and surgeons said the long-term survival of cancer patients whose surgery was delayed could be affected.
The union said the employers' offer "represents a pay cut as it fails to meet the pace of inflation".
The district health boards' spokesman, Canterbury DHB chief executive Gordon Davies, said the board had offered an 8.5 per cent rise over three years with a pay scale starting at $45,000 and automatic increments to $56,000. The union's claim for pay and conditions was more than 20 per cent.
But the union said the employers' publicly-stated offer included annual increments to which staff were already entitled and was contingent on members' giving up other conditions.
The union also wants any deal to protect members' conditions if their work is contracted-out to another employer, but the boards maintain this is unnecessary as it is already provided by legislation.
