Arm wrestle over nurses union action

Some members of the nurses union are being blocked from two-hour meetings this week that will determine how they respond to the latest pay offer from their employer, Te Whatu Ora, a senior nurse says.

The NZ Nurses Organisation (NZNO) is hosting 57 stopwork meetings, about two hours each, at hospitals and venues around the country this week following a pay offer. But Wellington-based delegate and senior nurse Ryan Teahan says members must seek their manager’s approval before attending the meeting and in some cases are being denied the chance to go. ‘‘We were under the impression the law actually allows us to go and hear what the offer is, even if we know we are probably going to say no to it,’’ Teahan said. ‘‘To have to apply to our managers to do that is kind of insulting.’’

Several meetings are being held offsite, for example at the Lower Hutt Town Hall today, with buses arranged for members from Wellington, Porirua and Hutt hospitals. These offsite meetings are creating the most issues with managers, The Post understands.

Te Whatu Ora did not respond directly to claims members were being blocked from attending but said it had agreed a process with the union to determine which members could attend if they were rostered to work.

‘‘The plans in place mean that during these paid union meetings we are able to maintain continuity of services, manage risk to patients, and minimise disruption to care. We are not aware of any instances where these plans have not been followed,’’ a statement said.

The current multi-employer collective agreement (MECA) states members are allowed a total of four hours leave per year to attend union meetings, through arrangements must be made so ‘‘business is maintained’’. It is understood the NZNO wanted elective surgeries and appointments to be rescheduled but Te Whatu Ora did not agree to this. However, there is a broad agreement to not book any new services for the days of the meetings where there are cancellations, The Post understands.

Te Whatu Ora said there had been no disruption to elective surgeries due to the meetings ‘‘and we will continue to resource our acute care at safe levels’’.

Hospital leaders had made ‘‘significant efforts’’ to allow the union to hold meetings on hospital sites to support members to attend. ‘‘In several instances this offer has been taken up by the NZNO, however in many cases they have chosen to hold the meetings offsite.’’

NZNO has already publicly said the current offer will not help provide the care patients deserve. The offer would not be presented to members to vote on, Teahan said. ‘‘We are just saying [the offer] does not meet any of our requests.’’ The purpose of the meetings then was to ‘‘go legally through the motions’’, with a view to approach the Employment Relations Authority if necessary, Teahan said.

‘‘Every MECA we have had so far has promised things and never delivered . . . We just don’t trust Te Whatu Ora.’’

Teahan said the offer would go nowhere to address safe staffing – which was a long way off, with the sector now short ‘‘well over 4000 nurses’’.

‘‘It is a really bad offer. It is not respectful at all of us as a profession.’’