Nurse Sarita Sharma on strike in Wellington. Photo / RNZ, Samuel Rillstone
By Keiller MacDuff of RNZ
More than 36,000 nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants will walk off the job again today, demanding better pay and increased staffing.
For the second time this week, Nurses Organisation (NZNO) members will withdraw their labour at every place where Te Whatu Ora provided healthcare or hospital care services between 7am and 11pm.
Life-preserving services would still be provided.
Tens of thousands of NZNO members took strike action on Tuesday morning. The union said Te Whatu Ora had failed to address concerns about patient safety and staffing after a year of bargaining.
Striking nurses outside Health Minister Simeon Brown’s electorate office on Tuesday were met by a large sign plastered across his windows, which said the union’s strike was disrupting more than 13,000 surgeries and appointments.
The strikes followed nearly a year of deadlocked negotiations between the union and Health NZ, which culminated in a 24-hour strike at the end of July.
In May, registered nurses were offered a pay increase of 1% in 2025 and 1% in 2026.
In July, Health NZ increased this to 2% in 2025 and 1% in 2026, which the union dismissed as a “massive backward step”.
NZNO president Anne Daniels told RNZ earlier in the week that, in addition to pay equity and better staffing, nurses were demanding a pay rise in excess of 3%.
“That is a pay rate that is above the cost of living. A less than 1% pay offer is a pay cut,” Daniels said.
But chief clinical officer Dr Richard Sullivan told Morning Report Health NZ was not aware of the union’s demand for a 3% pay increase until it was brought up on air on Tuesday morning.
“It was great to hear a number because we have been asking the union for some time about what it would take to settle this agreement. That’s the first time I’ve heard that number.”
In July, the NZNO counter-offer to Health NZ’s proposed settlement included an increase of 3% for 2025, and 2% in 2026.
Sullivan also said he was unsure whether the nurses’ demands were based on addressing staffing levels or pay.
“It’d be interesting to get back around the table and have that conversation and see if we can find a way through this.”
He said he did not believe the country’s hospitals were understaffed.
Health NZ formally apologised to the union after the chief ombudsman found it had unreasonably withheld information on staffing levels.
Daniels said the double strike action was “unprecedented”.
“That reflects to me the extreme anger that our members have towards Health NZ and the Government over not putting on the table something we can talk about.
“Our minister of health keeps telling us to come back to the table, but nothing new is put on the table - so what is the point?”
Brown on Tuesday said Health NZ’s latest offer would give graduate nurses a total pay increase of $8337 by June of 2026.
Leaked documents showed Health NZ was planning to employ more graduate nurses on part-time hours, cut the amount of on-the-job training they received, and reduce the minimum amount of hours graduates could be employed for.
Figures showed just 45% of graduates were finding work.
“So we’re going to have a part-time workforce, which means that they won’t get paid what they deserve and they will have to find secondary jobs to pay off their student loans or other debt,” NZNO kaiwhakahaere (leader) Kerri Nuku said on Tuesday.
Delegate Noreen McCallan told RNZ the two-day strike action was not taken lightly by members.
“We are doing this because we fear for the safety of our patients. We will lose two days’ pay for striking but we are standing up for safe staffing because it is the right thing to do.
“We became health workers because we want to care for people. But staff shortages have become overwhelming and exhausting for many of us. Our patients are suffering longer because we can’t get to them as quickly as we should.”
Health NZ estimated 2250 planned procedures, 3600 first specialist appointments and 8000 follow-up appointments would be postponed because of the strikes.
- RNZ