For immediate use

25 July 2018

ACC medical advisors will walk off the job again today (Wednesday 25 July) for four hours over their unsettled collective employment agreement.

“They’re very unhappy about ACC’s continuing refusal to negotiate properly with them,” says Lloyd Woods, a Senior Industrial Officer at the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS).

“They’re not asking for a lot, or for anything unreasonable, but ACC just won’t listen.”

The strike goes from 1pm until 5pm, and is the second in a series of five rolling stoppages over successive weeks. Further strikes are planned for Thursday 2 August (8am – 12 noon), Friday 10 August (1pm – 5pm) and Monday 13 August (8am – 12 noon).

Pamphlets about the situation will be distributed outside ACC’s Wellington head office during today’s strike, and Mr Woods says ASMS has raised the stalemate with the Minister responsible for ACC, Iain Lees-Galloway.

“ACC seems to have a really cavalier attitude towards medical advisers and their claims, and that’s just ratcheting up the heat in the situation.

“These are very experienced, patient senior doctors who do important work for ACC, and the fact their employer isn’t taking their quite reasonable claims seriously constitutes a lack of good faith in our view. It really denotes a lack of care or concern for them.”

One of the sticking points is the medical advisors’ request to include a statement about the importance of well-being in their collective agreement. Mr Woods says it’s a mystery why this is such a problem for ACC, given its role as a government agency promoting prevention, care and recovery.

More information is available on the ASMS website at https://www.asms.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ACC-medical-advisor-strike-QA_170344.1.pdf.

ENDS

© Scoop Media