Fair Share for Aged Care
Welcome to the Grow to Win Campaign - your campaign for fair pay in aged care!
Pay and conditions for caregivers, nurses and support staff in aged care have been too low for too long. To change that we need strength of numbers. Together we are stronger, more effective and we can win.
June 24, 2008 Update
Safe Staffing Petition: To date we have just 1400 signatures on our petition calling for Mandatory Safe Staffing regulations in the Aged Care sector. We have postponed the date we will deliver the petition to August. A firm date will be decided within the next week. There will be a concerted effort to gather as many signatures as possible in that time. Our target is 10,000.
- Action=> Download a copy of the petition from here.
- Action => Identify opportunities to gather signatures (eg rugby games, concerts, community events etc) and contact your organiser to coordinate a group to go out and get signatures from the public.
- Action=> Look out for a date in July when your local NZNO office will organise NZNO staff and members to gather signatures in your town centre.
- Action=> Make sure everyone in your workplace gets at least one sheet (10 signatures) filled in.
May 26, 2008 Update
Safe Staffing Petition: Our petition to Parliament requesting that mandatory Safe Staffing regulations be put in place for the Aged Care sector was launched during Caregivers week. We are aiming to present the petition in June.
Grow to Win: Filming is underway on a recruitment video starring NZNO and SFWU members and delegates working in Aged Care facilities around the country. This will be a great tool for showing prospective members what being in the union is all about and the difference it has made to them personally.
March 13, 2008 Update
The details of initiating an Aged Care MECA are currently being worked through. We hope to have more to report on this soon. This week is caregivers week and NZNO is holding three Caregivers’ Conferences in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch. These will focus on education but will also have an industrial element with a presentation on our campaign and the launch of a new petition to Parliament.
NZNO and SFWU will petition Parliament to replace the current voluntary staffing guidelines with mandatory safe-staffing regulations. Since the introduction of the guidelines in 2005, it has been clear that actual staffing levels consistently fall well below the recommended level and that voluntary self-regulation is not working.
- Action => Download a copy of the petition here and get it filled in at your workplace
Petition to the New Zealand House of Representativesrequestinglegislated Safe Staffingregulations in Aged Care
We are petitioning the House of Representativesthat residential aged care facility staffing level guidelines published in the Indicators for safe aged-care and dementia-care for consumers (Ministry of Health, 2005) be replaced with legislated, mandatory staffing regulations because:
- Staffing levels routinely fall below the current voluntary guidelines
- Patient and staff safety is severely compromised by un-safe staffing levels
- Self-regulation has proved an inadequate mechanism for establishing safe staffing practices in the Aged Care Sector.
You can help make this happen by downloading a petition form and collecting the signatures of your colleagues, whanau, friends, team mates, neighbours etc
Grow to Win is an exciting campaign run jointly by the New Zealand Nurses Organisation and Service and Food Workers Union: Nga Ringa Tota. It's a campaign to win fair pay and decent conditions in aged care through collective bargaining. To do that we need to increase the number of union members. When we have strength of numbers, we have a strong collective voice. We need lots more workers in aged care to join the union to be successful.
We need to grow to win and the time to do it is right now! |
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Fair Share for Age - May 2007
WOW! What an incredible week it has been for our Aged Care campaign. On May Day (May 1st), Health Minister Pete Hodgson announced an additional $150 million for residential aged care albeit spread over four years. In his statement, he expressed the view that money should go to wage increases and signaled his support for this being achieved through collective bargaining.
Providers will still need to negotiate with DHBs and we still need to negotiate with the providers.
However, on top of this being the largest single investment in Aged Care, it also came with the strongest indications from the Minister that he expects this money to go to workers. Even better, Pete stated that he thought a collectivised (ie unionised) workforce would stand to gain the most from this funding boost. A ringing endorsement of our campaign!
The story generated considerable media interest and Cee Payne-Harker fronted for NZNO on Breakfast Television, Morning Report on Radio New Zealand National, Newstalk ZB, Radio Live and a host of newspaper articles. Extra special mention must be made of Anne Galloway, delegate and caregiver in Dunedin who was interviewed live on Checkpoint at extremely short notice. Anne did herself and NZNO proud stating our position very clearly and handling some tricky questions with aplomb. Great work Anne!!
The employers’ group, HealthCare Providers NZ, have already started to roll out the excuses why they won’t pass on all of the funding to workers. However as media stories developed over the couple of days following the announcement it became clear that we have considerable public support that we can carry into upcoming negotiations.
Aged Care National Advisory Group
The national group of delegates from NZNO and SFWU met in Wellington recently to set out our campaign for the next 12 months. It was decided that we would limit the planned member actions to three this year:
- Going to Labour Party Regional conferences to get support for a remit calling for a mechanism to deliver funding to workers in the Aged Care and Disabilities sectors.
- An action on the Shortest Day (June 20) highlighting short staffing
- An action on the Day of the Older Person in October to highlight the need to improve quality
It was also decided that we would increase our focus on the employers’ responsibilities to improve wages and quality in Aged Care and not campaign only around funding.
As we move into negotiations with the employers and look to consolidate where we can in the chain providers, we will seek to generate local media stories about our campaign and use that opportunity to shift the focus onto employers. Hopefully the recent funding announcements will raise public expectations of more positive outcomes for us and we will need to make maximum use of those expectations in our campaign. |
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Background
NZNO, together with the SFWU has been campaigning for a Fair Share for Aged Care for a number of years.
The campaign's goal is to win increased government funding for the aged care sector in Budget 2005.
We are campaigning for increased funding targeted to:
- Fairpay for caregivers, nurses and support workers in aged care
- Safe staffing levels
- More training opportunties and recognition of training in improved pay
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On this Page
Snapshot of Staffing Levels
NZNO delegates recently undertook a snapshot of aged-care sites to examine staffing levels. Among other areas of concern the survey showed that staffing levels fall significantly below the indicators issued by the Ministry of Health.
Media Releases
- New Zealanders say Stop the Aged Care Crisis! NZNO Media Release, 13 December 2006
- Winter of Discontent for Aged Care - National Action Day NZNO Media Release, 14 July 2006
- Nurses Organisation Backs Call For Aged Care Inquiry, NZNO Media Release,19 June 2006
- Paying Properly for Aged Care, Green Party Media Release, 23 May 2006
- Budget leaves Aged Care out in the Cold, NZNO Media Release, 18 May 2006
- Corporate Grip Tightens on Aged Care, Press Release - 31 January 2006
- Minimum Wage Increase Puts Pressure On Aged Care Scrooges NZNO, Press Release -21 December 2005
- Guardian Strike On As Mediation Fails, NZNO Media Release, 23 September 2005
- National’s Aged Care Policy Won’t Fix the Pay Problems, NZNO Media Release, 08 September
- Undervalued aged-care workers to take strike action later this month,NZNO Media Release, 4 May 2005.
Resources
Resources are available to support the campaign which has a strong focus on gaining public support. A public lealfet and postcard to the Prime Minister calling for increased funding for aged care is available from NZNO delegates and organisers or by emailing fairshare@nzno.org.nz.
Greater Involvement with Aged Care Delegates (Member log on required)
Suggestions for encouraging greater connection between our aged care delegates and DHB delegates at Regional Council level
Suggestions for Building Greater Involvement with Aged Care Delegates
Fair Share News
Read or download:
- Fair Share News, June 2008 (PDF, 433 KB)
- Fair Share News, Nov 2007 (PDF, 702 KB)
- Fair Share News, July 2007 (PDF, 697 KB)
- Fair Share News, May 2007 (PDF, 672 KB)
- Fair Share News, Jul 2006 (PDF, 296 KB)
- Fair Share News, May 2006 (PDF, 384 KB)
- Fair Share News, Feb 2006 (PDF)
- Fair Share News, Nov 2005 (PDF, 531 KB)
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Taking It to the Streets! National Action Days 14 and 15 April 2005
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Aged care members around the country took to the streets and went orange on 14 and 15 April to highlight the need for increased government funding for the sector.
Pictured is a "Go Orange" event in Dunedin on April 14th. Orange is the campaign colour.
For more information on this and the Fair Share campaign, read or download Fair Share News Number 3, April 2005. |
Speeches
Speech to Aged Care Summit- Health Providers of NZ: A fair share for aged care: Union view on aged care funding, Wellington, 04 May 2005, Laila Harre
Caregivers' Week, March 14 - 18 2005
New Staffing Regulation for Aged Care
The Ministry of Health released a consultation document called New Staffing Regulation for Aged Care, which will be enacted under section 53(1) of the Health and Disability Services (Safety) Act in relation to minimum staffing levels in aged residential care facilities.
Click here to view or download the NZNO response, submitted to the Ministry of the 4th December 2004 on the proposed regulations.
Submission to the Select Committee - October 6, 2004
Download or viewNZNO media release (6 October 2004) .
Caregivers' Survey - October, 2004
Download or viewNZNO survey of caregivers' pay, October 2004
International Day of the Older Person - October 1, 2004
Staffing Effectiveness In Aged Care
To link to documents for the Standards NZ "Staffing Effectiveness Indicators for Residential Care Aged and Dementia Care Standard" and additional NZNO prepared papers to assist in submissions, click here. Staffing Effectiveness in Aged Care consultation papers - July 2004.
News for Aged Care NZNO Members
Resources
