Auckland Theatre Nurses To Strike Tomorrow

Te Toka Tumai Auckland Te Whatu Ora theatre nurses will strike for two hours tomorrow over attempts by Health New Zealand not to pay them appropriately for involuntary overtime.

The 370 perioperative (which includes preoperative, theatre and postoperative) nurses are members of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki O Aotearoa (NZNO) working at Auckland City Hospital, Starship Hospital and Greenlane Hospital.

NZNO delegate and perioperative nurse Alissa Baker says nurses are standing up against involuntary overtime. This stand is part of the current collective agreement bargaining between NZNO and Te Whatu Ora.

"Nurses should be paid appropriately for the work we are doing, and that does not include forced overtime as the Te Whatu Ora proposal seeks to enforce," Alissa Baker says.

NZNO chief executive Paul Goulter says it is appropriate the perioperative nurses are striking on May Day.

"May Day is a day for workers and unions around the world to celebrate workers’ rights and the union movement. It is timely that our perioperative nurses are making a stand for fair pay on May Day.

"The Government continues to chronically under-resource health, is increasing the privatisation of health services and fails to address the crisis in primary and aged residential care. This is another insult to other nurses and health care workers around the country.

"This year NZNO members will join their fellow union members around the country at Fight Back for Health and Fight Back Together events," Paul Goulter says.

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