16 May 2004

Striking mental health workers support calls for pay equity

“National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) members on strike at private mental health provider Richmond Fellowship fully support the bid for pay equity for nurses. In addition, our members believe that what’s good enough for nurses is good enough for all health workers” said NUPE Organiser John Kerr.

“The recommendations of The Pay Equity Taskforce don’t go far enough. Our union believes the government needs to allocate funding now out of the $7 billion surplus for the direct funding of undervalued and low wage workers across the health sector. This includes staff at organisations like Richmond Fellowship who are paid as little as $11 per hour looking after some of the most vulnerable and challenging members of society”, said John Kerr

“Publicly funded yet contracted out of the public health system, workers at Richmond Fellowship are being disadvantaged by a government that pays lip service to the concept of pay equity whilst failing to front up with hard cash”, said John Kerr.

NUPE members have been undertaking low level strike action since April in support of their pay claims, they have issued notice of a 48 hour withdrawal of labour on the 19 & 20 May.

ENDS

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>