Aged-care sector negotiations round-up hospice members accept pay deal.

Bargaining for the Anglican Aged Care Collective Agreement, which covers both NZNO and Service and Food Workers' Union Nga Ringa Tota members in Churchill Hospital, Churchill Courts, Holdsworth House, Fitzgerald House and Bishopspark, all in Christchurch, has finished. These negotiations were completed in one day. We have a proposed settlement to take to our members which includes a pass-on of all additional funding received by the employer. The proposed terms of settlement include an increase of four percent on all base rates and an additional merit step for registered nurses (RNs).

A focus of the last few years has been to increase the weekend allowance in an effort to improve the recruitment and retention of staff, especially for weekend work. In addition to the above increase, we also negotiated an increase in this allowance. Members will vote on this shortly.

West Coast site

Members at Plymouth Court Rest Home and Allen Bryant Hospital in Hokitika have accepted a settlement reached in negotiations in June. The settlement includes a term through to June 30, 2007, a two percent increase from April 25, 2006 for RNs and enrolled nurses (ENs), followed by an additional 2.4 percent from July 1 2006, a 4.4 percent increase for caregivers from July 1, 2006, a new allowance of $5 per shift for staff who agree to come into work at short notice (two hours or less), and an improvement to annual practising certificate reimbursement criteria for RNs and ENs.

Other aged-care bargaining

Bargaining will commence shortly at Windsor Home and Hospital Christchurch Methodist Mission and Guardian Healthcare Group (covering the former Care and Independence sites). Collective bargaining continues at St Winifred's Hospital, with a settlement yet to be reached after five days of negotiations and one day of mediation. A further half-day mediation was scheduled for early this month.

Grow to Win Campaign

NZNO's Grow to Win Campaign is showing early signs of success, with Canterbury making consistent membership gains over the last three months. This is due to the hard work of all our delegates and activists. Along with an increase in members, we have a number of fantastic new delegates as well

"Winter of Discontent" protest

Christchurch delegates and activists took part in a protest in The Square as part of the nationwide "winter of discontent" action by aged-care members. We collected approximately 300 signatures and shared our hot soup with passersby. This action was again calling for increased "tagged" funding for the sector. This sector remains in crisis, with a 40 percent staff turnover, hopelessly inadequate wages, staffing levels and training. A big thank you to Anglican Aged Care for assistance in heating the soup.

Otago District Health Board

In April the Otago District Health Board chief executive, Brian Rousseau, announced to staff that there would be a review of services and personnel. The review first looked at the executive team and resulted in the loss of the executive director of nursing, primary care, and the integrated care manager. The seven group manager positions have been reduced to four, with the next phase of the review being service managers.

Maniototo Hospital

Negotiations were to start late last month. This small hospital situated in the rural town of Ranfurly, is operated by a Community Trust and funded from the DHB. During negotiations in 2005 NZNO did not achieve parity with the DHB MECA for its members and this will be the basis of our claim.

Southern region report by Nicki Connors