Nurses, teachers fear meddling

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Nurses and teachers fear the Government is getting ready to muscle in on potentially long and disruptive national pay rounds next year.

As Labour Minister Margaret Wilson introduced legislation yesterday to beef up good-faith bargaining provisions in industrial law, several health sector unions went on the warpath against a clause they claim could curtail their rights to strike.

Secondary teachers are also upset about law changes by which the State Service Commission will take over responsibility from school boards for docking their pay during strikes.

Both issues have come to a head as nurses and teachers look ahead to pay-bargaining next year.

Nurses have spent months building momentum for a national pay equity campaign.

The Post Primary Teachers Association, which is also preparing for a campaign to renew its collective pay agreement, is accusing Education Minister Trevor Mallard of exacting "revenge" for last year's strikes.

Union president Phil Smith said his members did not mind having their pay docked during strikes, but were furious Mr Mallard was trying to "bully" them by taking powers away from boards of trustees which refused to do so last time.

On a day when many unionists hailed new protections for low-paid workers and clearer collective bargaining rules, the Nurses Organisation claimed health workers were singled out for attention.

Union chief Geoff Annals said the problem was a clause in the Employment Relations Law Reform Bill requiring the Health Minister to approve a code of practice governing health and safety during strikes and lockouts in the health sector.

He said that although nobody disputed the need to protect the lives of patients during strikes, a draft industry-unions code of good faith bargaining would do just that without political interference.

Mr Annals accepted an assurance from Ms Wilson that the clause was not a response to the effectiveness of the nurses' campaign for fair pay.

But he would have great trouble convincing them of this, and giving Health Minister Annette King such a role could put her under great public pressure next year if pay talks collapsed and non-critical surgery was interrupted by hospital strikes.

He called on the Government to have faith in protections for critical-care patients in the industry-unions code of practice, which Council of Trade Union affiliates and district health boards were ready to present to ministers on Wednesday night.

But it is believed the Government is concerned that non-CTU unions, notably those covering junior doctors and radiographers, will not feel bound by the code.

Strikes by radiographers last year prompted Auckland health chiefs to lobby the Government for a statutory ban on hospital unions from striking without providing emergency cover.

A spokeswoman for Ms Wilson said the Government was simply building on the industry-unions code and patient safety protocols would be well-established ahead of any strikes.

Service and Food Workers' Union secretary Darien Fenton, who is elated by protections for many low-paid members when businesses change hands, was pleased the code would extend to contractors as well as health boards.

But Association of Senior Medical Specialists official Angela Belich said her group feared the clause could give too much power to ministers.

The secretary of the junior doctors and radiographers' unions, Dr Deborah Powell, was even more scathing of what she called "an absolute attack on nurses."

"This will give the minister, as the employer of the nurses, unacceptable power to kneecap them ... "


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