Hawke’s Bay health workers have been paid $15 million in historical holiday pay and leave entitlements after what a union delegate says has been an eight-year “fight”.
On Thursday, Te Whatu Ora Health NZ paid roughly $15.2m to 4120 current employees in Hawke’s Bay as part of its Holidays Act Remediation Programme.
Employees who received a lump sum in their bank account included nurses, doctors, allied health staff, healthcare assistants, cleaners and administrators.
The backpay relates to incorrectly calculated holiday pay and leave entitlements dating from May 2010 to this month.
While current staff have been paid, former employees in Hawke’s Bay have to wait until next year for their backpay, as part of the remediation programme.
The amount paid to each employee differs but it is understood some long-term nurses received up to $12,000 on Thursday, while longstanding doctors received more.
An error in DHB payroll systems was reportedly first picked up in 2016 as non-compliant with the Holidays Act. Other organisations, such as NZ Police, discovered similar non-compliance with the act.
Health NZ has since gone through a lengthy and complex process to repay staff and to fix payroll systems, with each region paid at different times due to having different systems.
Hawke’s Bay is among the first regions to get a payout, after payments were processed in Auckland areas.
Te Whatu Ora Health NZ acting chief executive Dale Bramley said he was “very pleased” current Hawke’s Bay staff had been paid the money they were owed.
“Resolving Holidays Act remediation payments for these staff has been extremely complex and time-consuming work requiring a large amount of manual processing and specialist skills.”
NZ Nurses Organisation union delegate Cath Hellyer, who works at Hawke’s Bay Hospital as a care associate, said it had been a “fight” to get to this stage with Health NZ, and she believed it should not have taken eight years.
“Everyone thought it would never happen because it has taken so long.”
Hellyer said while it was good to see existing staff paid, it was disappointing former employees were having to wait until next year.
Hellyer said she would continue advocating for former nurses to be paid what they were owed.
“Just recently there are three that have died in the DHB,” she said. “[Some of] my friends that knew they were dying came to me and said ‘would I please make sure their families get paid out’.”
She said while it had been hard work pushing for the correct payout, she thanked the local payroll manager for Health NZ, who “has been excellent”.
Health NZ acting chief people officer Fiona McCarthy said the payroll system for Hawke’s Bay was now “compliant with the Holidays Act”.
The payments needed to be completed first before the updated payroll system could kick in.
“To make the payments this week our teams needed to calculate payments from May 1, 2010 through to today.
“The data was then added to the new system and the payroll system configured, tested and put into production.
“The team have been working with over 700,000 lines of data to check, correct and then make payment.”
McCarthy said the scale and complexity of the work could not be overestimated.
Gary Hamilton-Irvine is a Hawke’s Bay-based reporter who covers a range of news topics including business, councils, breaking news and cyclone recovery. He formerly worked at News Corp Australia.