Private Businesses Providing Public Healthcare Must Engage in Sustainable Employment Relations

18 July 2007

NZNO condemns the aggressive and divisive tactics used by Spotless Services Ltd to deprive their employees working at New Zealand’s public hospitals of the terms and conditions agreed to by 17 DHBs and 3 private companies.

While Spotless makes grand overtures about paying their employees on par with other employers, their strategy of insisting on conditions that would give them a competitive advantage is clearly designed to de-stabilise the multi-employer collective bargaining process.

NZNO Organising Services Manager Cee Payne-Harker says the New Zealand public deserves to know that there are robust mechanisms in place for ensuring taxpayers’ money is being used to improve healthcare services, not offshore profits.

“All these workers do the same jobs and are funded from the same source, so it is only fair that they work under the same wages and conditions,” says Cee Payne-Harker.

Elsewhere in the health sector, private providers of publicly funded Aged Care are challenging the DHBs’ requirement that they pass on funding increases to improve their workers’ wages. The employers are particularly aggrieved that transparent collective agreements should be a mechanism for doing so.

“These healthcare corporations have been under the impression for some time now that New Zealanders’ money is theirs to do with what they please,” says Cee Payne-Harker. “Now they are shocked that the Government has some expectations about what will be done with our money.”

“Collective agreements with their staff are a robust, transparent and sustainable way for employers to show their commitment to the future of quality public healthcare,” Cee Payne-Harker added.

ENDS