9 June 2021.
Hundreds of nurses in Auckland joined others across the country to strike for improvements in pay and working conditions. Video / Dean Purcell
Unions are taking their fight for pay equity for nurses to court, specifically concerning backpay they feel is owed to their members.
Representatives of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) and the Public Service Association (PSA) appeared in the Employment Court in Wellington last week, alongside representatives of Te Whatu Ora/Health New Zealand.
In May, the NZNO confirmed its members had voted to refer the DHB Nursing Pay Equity settlement - worth about $520 million per annum to the health payroll - to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA).
“This follows widespread concern from members and other affected DHB employees that the DHB employers were not honouring an agreement in the 2020 DHB/NZNO MECA (signed last year) that each employee would receive back pay on the basis of the new rates to 31 December 2019,” an NZNO statement from May said.
“Instead, a series of lump sum payments in recognition of past work has been proposed, amounting to much lower remuneration for many nurses than they would have received had they been back-paid as originally agreed.”
NZNO members have been active in their calls for fair pay. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The matter had since been transferred from the ERA to the Employment Court. At last week’s meeting, procedural items were discussed and decisions on those items would be delivered by the court by mid-December, it was expected.
NZNO chief executive Paul Goulter told the Herald it was important to resolve the matter quickly.
“Our claim is based on a strong belief that the Crown did enter into an obligation to pay full backpay. The Crown’s position is they didn’t,” he said.
“We believe it’s in everyone’s interest to have this matter adjudicated on by the court as soon as possible to resolve it and move on.”
Goulter said the ERA would also begin deliberating next week in Wellington on what new equity-based pay rates for public hospital nurses and healthcare assistants would be.
He hoped the pay equity rates would be confirmed soon so the sector could attract more nurses and also allow progress on establishing pay parity between nurses working in hospitals and those in the community.
Pay equity and safer staffing have been nurses' main concerns. Photo / George Heard
The Herald was expecting a statement from Te Whatu Ora.
A PSA spokesperson declined to comment while the case was before the court.
In September, Health Minister Andrew Little referenced the “significant disagreement over the pay-equity claim” while speaking at the NZNO conference.
While he was limited in what he could say given it was the subject of litigation, Little said decisions from the Court and the Authority were likely to be more than a year away.
“I will just say this: I hope that, as the respective legal teams continue with their preparation and become better acquainted with the details of the dispute, any opportunity that might arise to discuss the issues and resolve them by mutual agreement is taken,” Little said in September.
