Good Faith Protocol Impasse Stalls Health Talks

Impasse Over Good Faith Protocol Stalls Health Meca Talks

The PSA and the six South Island District Health Boards are off to mediation to try and reach agreement on how they will bargain with each other in 'good faith' for the Clerical and Administrative Employees’ Multi-employer Collective Agreement (MECA), union advocate Mark Ryan said today.

“The clerical MECA is the first of three regional agreements the PSA is seeking for its’ members in the health sector in the South Island - the Allied Health and the Mental Health Nurse MECAs were initiated on July 9.”

"It’s disappointing that we cannot get the agreement of the DHBs over a relatively straight-forward bargaining protocol that determines how we will bargain with each other."

Mark Ryan said that four parts of the protocol remain in dispute - the release of delegates on pay for preparation prior to the start of negotiations, the presence of observers at the negotiations, cost sharing for information requests, and the number of union representatives on the negotiating team.

"Our clerical members have been looking forward to an orderly and constructive set of negotiations for this MECA. Instead the union is now facing resistance to what we consider to be fairly fundamental issues of representation and collective participation.”

The DHBs involved in the clerical MECA include Southland, Otago, Canterbury, Nelson Marlborough and West Coast. South Canterbury are due to be cited into the bargaining shortly.

Mark Ryan said the mediation will occur in Dunedin on August 6.

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