Northland allied health workers vote to strike as industry hits 'breaking point'

Northland Sterile Sciences Technician, Steve, will strike on Friday for better pay and work conditions for his workforce. Photo / Michael Cunningham

A Northland lab technician plans to join a nationwide strike on Friday to stand up for an industry he says has been at breaking point for too long.

Sterile Sciences technician Steve - who does not want his last name published - is one of 350 Northland health workers and thousands nationwide that DHBs are trying to prevent from striking.

Steve has had to endure low pay and mounting workload pressure - the "worst" he has seen in his 12-year career.

"We actually can't afford to strike because we need every day's pay but we were ready to make that sacrifice and our families will suffer for it, just to try and make our point.

"My department is over 50 per cent short-staffed. We've got 10 staff and we actually should have 23 and out of those 10 staff, five of them are trainees with a year or less experience," he said.

Steve has experienced an industry under pressure for more than a decade but said it is now at a breaking point.

His workforce has been described as hidden and forgotten. Even he admitted the public is most likely unaware about half the roles that exist - including his own.

"Nobody has any idea what we do, and I think they'd be shocked to find out our pay rates.

"If we don't sterilise this room properly, suddenly someone's going to get an infection and an infection could kill them," Steve said.

"It's a highly technical role and very difficult and if we muck it up somebody could die."

Steve said even though he is at the top of the pay scale for his role, his pay is so low that entry-level jobs in other industries offer higher wages - even without qualifications or experience.

"There's no prospect for those low-pay people to get much higher than $60,000 or not even $60,000. Now, the Government said at the start of the year that $60,000 was a low wage but we can't get past it."

This is the pay for an educated workforce, many of whom will spend three to four years studying only to graduate with a student loan worth tens of thousands of dollars.

These issues make it difficult to retain, let alone recruit new staff into the industry, so the workload falls on employees like Steve.

"The increased workload for us is just ridiculous. We're working constantly in the evening or on weekends. I hardly ever get to see my family because we haven't got enough staff to cover shifts, so we have to cover the late shifts all the time."

On February 17, after 15 months of "fruitless negotiations", PSA announced professionals working within the DHBs voted "overwhelmingly" to strike on March 4 and March 18.

"They've offered us a very low offer, which is nowhere near inflation, nowhere near what other health workers have been offered and received," Steve said.

He described how the offers were also short of the minimum wage rise set for April. That made the current first two steps on their salary scale illegal as their pay would be lower than minimum wage, Steve said.

However, on Tuesday the PSA was notified that district health boards nationwide had filed urgent proceedings seeking an injunction against the strike.

The DHBs sought to have this heard urgently by the Employment Court today - a day before the first strike was to happen.

Steve wanted the strikes to achieve a fair and equitable pay outcome for his workforce as it has for other health care professionals recently, such as nurses.

"It's pretty annoying that the DHBs have gone to these lengths to try and stop us from striking when we're well in our rights to strike. We're pretty disappointed by their actions," he said.