Te Toka Tumai Auckland Te Whatu Ora theatre nurses will strike for two hours tomorrow over attempts by Health New Zealand not to pay them appropriately for involuntary overtime.
The 370 perioperative (which includes preoperative, theatre and postoperative) nurses are members of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki O Aotearoa (NZNO) working at Auckland City Hospital, Starship Hospital and Greenlane Hospital.
NZNO delegate and perioperative nurse Alissa Baker says nurses are standing up against involuntary overtime. This stand is part of the current collective agreement bargaining between NZNO and Te Whatu Ora.
"Nurses should be paid appropriately for the work we are doing, and that does not include forced overtime as the Te Whatu Ora proposal seeks to enforce," Alissa Baker says.
NZNO chief executive Paul Goulter says it is appropriate the perioperative nurses are striking on May Day.
"May Day is a day for workers and unions around the world to celebrate workers’ rights and the union movement. It is timely that our perioperative nurses are making a stand for fair pay on May Day.
"The Government continues to chronically under-resource health, is increasing the privatisation of health services and fails to address the crisis in primary and aged residential care. This is another insult to other nurses and health care workers around the country.
"This year NZNO members will join their fellow union members around the country at Fight Back for Health and Fight Back Together events," Paul Goulter says.
Editor notes:
- Striking perioperative nurses will join senior doctors and cross-union members for the May Day Fight Back for Heath event outside the front of Auckland City Hospital from 9am to 1pm tomorrow (Thursday 1 May)
- NZNO perioperative members from Auckland City Hospital, Starship Hospital and Greenlane Clinical Centre will strike between 9am-11am.
- NZNO perioperative members working in Post Anaesthesia Care Units on level 4, 8 and 9 at Auckland City Hospital, Starship Hospital and Greenlane Clinical Centre will strike between 11.30am-1.30pm.
- Information about Fight Back for Health events can be found here
- Information about Fight Back Together can be found here