Mike Hosking: Nurses struggle with bitter pill of truth that pay offer is a good deal

Might I say for the record I had no intention of upsetting the nurses last week in quite the way I appear to have.

Could have been the jetlag coming back from London, or … it could have been I might have had a point over their pay offer.

Nine per cent by August 2019 is an outstanding deal.

Mind you, none of that mattered momentarily as I sat in the doctor's office getting my bloods done.

It occurred to me as the nurse called out my number and ushered me towards the room that, knowing my luck, it would be the nurse most offended who was about to jab me.

It was the nurse who could not believe her luck that the loudmouth from the radio who had so deeply offended and affronted her fellow medical professionals was indeed the same bloke sitting in her chair at her mercy and she had the rubber gloves and the sharp instruments.

It turned out fine of course, because nurses are professionals and that's why we love them. That is why we don't begrudge them more money and better conditions.

But that is the point.

That's what they have been offered and yet it would appear they don't want it.

They don't like how the DHBs put the offer out publicly - despite the fact it's us paying the bill - and they don't like how the DHBs came up with a calculation that as a result of a 9 per cent rise and some bonus payments and a better callout rate a nurse could, in fact, earn $93,000 a year.

A figure I found, and publicly stated, that appeared to be a pretty good deal. Now the confusion and hence the anger appears to have come about not just from the DHBs going public, but the counter-claims that you'd have to work pretty hard to get the 93 grand.

To which I say, so what?

If for whatever reason you don't want to work extra hours or unsociable hours, then there is no one holding a gun to your head.

The point of this offer is that you can, if you choose, earn that amount of money.
The opportunity is there - and if I was a nurse I'd be all over it like a rash.

The danger for the nurses is they burn goodwill here.

We like nurses, but 9 per cent is testing the patience of many of us who haven't seen 9 per cent in our lifetimes, far less now.

This is an era of low wage increases. We have no inflation, interest rates are low, the economy is sound - all flamboyant payouts do is turn all that on its head.

There is a claim, and a justified one, that the pay rises most of us have seen should or could have been better, but there is a massive gap between the 2 or 3 per cent for the majority and the 9 per cent for the nurses (and don't even get me started on what the teachers want).

And where it appears to be going slightly off the rails is the unions who have never quite worked out that you don't add up past years' disappointments and roll them out as a single claim.

Each contract is a deal. You don't get to revisit it in a cost-plus kind of way two years later.

And all of this, of course, is dangerous for the rest of us. If the nurses get 9 per cent and the teachers get 11 per cent, every man and his dog will hold out for similar amounts and, guess what, not everyone is paid by the taxpayer and not a lot of people have the billions just sitting around ready to hand out double-digit pay claims.

It is bad news for the economy and jobs will be lost.

So 9 per cent and the ability through some extra hours to earn 93 grand a year is more than fair.

If the nurses reject it, in a single vote, they will have burnt a lot of the public sympathy they've enjoyed, based on the fact we thought they were there for more than the money.