September 17, 2004

All health workers deserve a fair deal

All health workers are underpaid and deserve an urgent response to their salary needs, PSA national secretary Richard Wagstaff said today.

PSA is the biggest union in the health sector areas of mental health, allied health professionals (including physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, and pharmacists), and clerical and administrative workers.

Richard Wagstaff said the PSA recognised that the New Zealand Nurses Organisation have run an effective campaign to draw attention to the inadequate salaries of general nurses but it was time to address salary injustices in the health sector as a whole.

“The needs of our members working in the health sector is a priority for the PSA. We have begun implementing an intensive bargaining strategy, initially within district health boards, aimed at delivering significant pay increases for our members working in the DHBs. This will be applied to members working in other areas of health as current agreements expire.

“We are working towards multi-employer collective agreements (MECAs) to achieve pay and employment equity and greater bargaining strength for our members in health. We will also be aiming for initiatives such as the government-subsidised retirement savings scheme to be extended to the health sector.”

Richard Wagstaff said the needs of PSA members working in health had been overlooked for too long and it was now time to address them.

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>>