Concerns support worker strikes causing distress

Concerns support worker strikes causing disabled clients distress

Continued strikes by support workers employed by IDEA Services are causing distress for clients who rely on their services for daily care, the Disabled Persons Assembly (DPA) says.

E tū announced today that care and support workers employed by IDEA Services will go on strike for 24 hours again this Sunday, the seventh strike since their dispute began eight months ago.

“I’m really concerned about the effects on the clients,” DPA Masterton Kaituitui Peter Knighton says. “As a disabled person myself, I know we need these structures and familiar faces.”

“They send relievers who haven’t don’t even know the clients. I know of a couple of clients at the day programme who need help changing, going to the toilet and eating. Having a new person coming and doing that will cause a lot of stress to those clients,” Mr Knighton says.

One of the concerns is the timeframe between when clients are told there is going to be a strike and when it goes ahead.

“They don’t tell the clients about the strike until the last minute,” Mr Knighton says. “If you can tell people with a disability beforehand, give us plenty of notice, then we have time to get used to the idea.”

“I would like the strikes to stop – but I’d like the managers to think about why we’re having these strikes, the effects, and how we can solve this.”

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