KEY POINTS:
Unionised junior doctors and related groups have come under attack from the senior doctors union over their use of "patients as weapons" in strike action.
Ian Powell, executive director of the senior doctors union, defended the "inalienable right to strike" in a weekend speech. But he said it
was being misused, and therefore undermined - to the detriment of patients' safety - by unions clustered around Deborah and Terry Powell's company, Contract Negotiation Services (CNS).
Deborah Powell, however, dismissed the attack as simply an attempt to protect the Government.
CNS is involved with the Resident Doctors Association (junior doctors), who went on strike in April and May; the Laboratory Workers Union; and the Association of Professional and Executive Employees (Apex), an umbrella union with 10 autonomous divisions of health workers, including radiation therapists, radiographers and sonographers.
The CNS unions are not affiliated to the Council of Trade Unions, unlike the senior doctors union and the Nurses Organisation. Nor are the CNS unions in the council's tripartite working relationship with the Government and district health boards.
Ian Powell characterises the CNS unions as "bargaining agents", in contrast to the "broader-based unionism" of his own organisation.
He told a dental conference on Saturday that bargaining agents focused on what they could "scratch out" of the health system, while unions like his also focused on what they could put into it.
"Regardless of motivation, seeing patients as weapons is an inevitable consequence of a bargaining-agent approach, whereas the broader unionism approach sees them as natural allies."
Most health-worker strikes were by CNS-linked unions and although they were often arguably justified, they "risked compromising safety" of patients.
He chose to speak out against the CNS unions because of Health and Disability Commissioner Ron Paterson's report this month on a near-miss case at Dunedin Hospital in 2006 during a strike by radiographers.
Mr Paterson said that if not for the strike, the patient would have had the head scan that led to surgery on a large brain abscess on the day of his admission to hospital, rather than first having to "deteriorate to a perilous state".
After investigating the health board and finding it had not breached the patient's rights, he said "the wrong party is in the dock", a veiled criticism of the union.
Deborah Powell accused Ian Powell of hypocrisy, saying his own union had come close to strike action.
"I suspect his motivation is to support the Labour Government, as the CTU unions seek to do."
Apex considers Mr Paterson indulged in "union bashing not justified by the facts" in the Dunedin case because he had refused union advice before issuing his decision.
Deborah Powell said the union had wanted to explain that the Dunedin patient would not have routinely been given an immediate MRI scan even if there was not a strike, because he arrived outside normal hours.
