Caregivers back at work

Caregivers and nurses at a Christchurch home for the intellectually disabled have returned to work after a 48-hour stopwork ended at 7am yesterday, but say they could take further action.

About 140 caregivers and nurses at Brackenridge Estate stopped work on Friday morning over pay and conditions. An offer late on Thursday of pay increases of 4 per cent for caregivers and 6 per cent for nurses was rejected.

The National Union of Public Employees said its members believed they had sent a strong message to management and the Health Ministry about the urgent need to find extra funding to settle the dispute. Union organiser Janice Gemmell said they had until the end of the month to come up with funding for a better offer.