The Coalition Government must confirm its commitment to
fully-funding pay equity for the funded health sector, the
New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki
O Aotearoa (NZNO) says.
After urgently changing the
Equal Pay Act without public consultation and scrapping 33
pay equity claims overnight, the Coalition
Government promised it had kept a “fair pay equity
scheme focused on genuine sex-based
discrimination”.
However, despite being asked in
Parliament and by media, Cabinet ministers have refused to
say whether a 2024 “pay
equity reset” means the funded sector will not have pay
equity claims funded by the Government. NZNO had 10 pay
equity claims dumped including for the primary health care,
hospice, Plunket and care and support funded
sectors.
NZNO Primary Health Care Nurses College chair
Tracey Morgan says the scrapping of the primary and
community health care claim was devastating to nurses in the
sector.
“Primary and community health care nurses,
like their hospice and Plunket counterparts, accepted lower
wage increases in their collective agreements on the
understanding they were about to receive pay equity
payments.
“They then had the rug pulled out from under
them with the Government ending their claims without warning
or legitimate reason.
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“Workplace Relations and Safety
Minister Brooke Van Velden has refused to say the Government
will fund pay equity claims for the funded sector, simply
pointing to an opaque 2024 Cabinet paper from Finance
Minister Nicola Willis which says the funded sector can go
cap in hand to the Government for each settlement.
“If
the Coalition Government remains truly committed to a fair
pay equity system, it should promise low-paid and
hard-working health care workers in the funded sector such
as primary and community care that they will fund their pay
equity settlements,” Tracey Morgan
says.
