Nurses frustrated over poor pay and conditions will no longer be striking this month after their union preliminarily accepted a pay offer from district health boards, Health Minister Andrew Little says.
The New Zealand Nurses Organisation will take an improved pay offer worth $408 million over 27 months to members, after 30,000 nurses walked off the job for eight hours last month in demand of better pay and staffing levels.
The union on Friday lifted its 24-hour strike notice for July 29, which would have delayed and disrupted care around the country, but an eight-hour strike notice for August 19 and 24- hour notice for September 9 remained.
Speaking on Friday after the deal was announced, Little wouldnt disclose details of the offer, which had yet to be put to nurses. But he said it included a standard cost of living adjustment and an advance on the pay equity claim launched three years ago which aimed to address sex-based pay discrimination.
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Health Minister Andrew Little says strike notices have been lifted.
In addition to that there is a commitment to conduct a ministerial review of the safe staffing accord and the implementation care capacity demand management that has not been consistently rolled out, he said.
The Ministry of Health and the nurses union would run a recruitment campaign to fill the 1450 nursing vacancies across the country, Little said.
We need to get nurses into those roles.
His announcement followed more than a year of negotiation. Meanwhile, nurses have long spoken out about unsafe staffing levels in hospitals around the country amidst a nationwide nursing shortage, with swathes of nurses due to retire in the next five years.
Nurses union organiser David Wait said the new offer was significantly different from the previous offer but nurses will now get to decide whether it was acceptable or not.
Timings for the ratification vote will also be announced to members next week.
Little said nurses were not paid fairly and wouldnt be until the pay equity issue was sorted. He would table an offer next month, and nurses would be back paid to December 2019.
Nurses frustrated over poor pay and conditions will no longer be striking this month after their union preliminarily accepted a pay offer from district health boards.
Nurses have been under-paid for years, largely because its a female-dominated profession. Settling the pay-equity claim means that for the first time, their work will be recognised and valued as much as comparable professions, he said.
District Health Boards spokesperson Dale Oliff said they were pleased to have “landed on what could be a basis for settling these negotiations” but couldnt yet give any details before it had been ratified.