Bargaining initiated for district health board MECA.

Bargaining for the second national NZNO/district health board (DHB) multi-employer collective agreement (MECA) was formally initiated on November 1. NZNO industrial adviser Glenda Alexander expects initial meetings to sort out the bargaining process agreement to be held before Christmas but actual bargaining won't be in full swing until February.

The theme for the MECA campaign is "Nurses and Midwives--Fair Play because we're worth it" and the campaign will gather momentum over the next couple of months. Six key principles wilt underpin the negotiations: maintaining and sustaining pay parity; a two-year term; fairness and equity; superannuation to be part of the total remuneration package; coverage to include all nurses with direct clinical input; and to update the MECA document to streamline entitlements and interpretations.

Negotiating teams

NZNO's negotiating team consists of five delegates: Sue Wahitiri (Northern); Alison Brown (Midlands); Dianne Maddock (Central); Claire Johnston (Canterbury); and Nigel Milton (Southern); and three staff: Alexander; Christchurch-based co-ordinating organiser Chris Wilson; and Auckland organiser Mark Lennox. NZNO's team had been considerably reduced from the 19strong contingent for the inaugual MECA in the interests of efficiency, Alexander said.

The DHB New Zealand (DHBNZ) team consists of Southland DHB chief executive (CE) Nigel Murray, who will be the Lead CE, the CEs of Tairawhiti and Otago DHBs, Jim Green and Brian Rousseau respectively, and employment relations specialist Mike Loftus.

Alexander said it was ironic that it was an all-male team, given the nursing workforce was 95 percent female and that a key theme of NZNO's Fair Play campaign was pay and employment equity. She had heard that some DHB directors of nursing and/or some chief operating officers may join the DHB team but had not received any confirmation of that.

Last month NZNO's negotiating team, along with the 21-strong national delegates' committee, met to discuss the feedback from endorsement meetings for the MECA claim and other aspects of negotiation preparations. Alexander said feedback on the issues-based approach had been positive, with those attending the meetings understanding the strategy. While attendance at the meetings had not been great, this probably reflected the fact most members were happy, as they had received the Last pay increase of the inaugural MECA pay deal on July 1, and that the second MECA campaign had not really got underway.

But it was important to look at ways of improving members' attendance and ideas included delegates taking a facilitation role at the meetings to support NZNO staff; clinical charge nurses getting reminders of the meetings on the day; and fliers and posters publicising a "count down" to the next meeting. The national delegates' committee also discussed its role as a reference group for the upcoming negotiations and the key leadership role the delegates must take in their workplaces. Alesander said the meeting had been a useful reflection on what had and hadn't worked in the build-up to negotiations.

As the second MECA negotiations begin, issues arising from the inaugural MECA, which expires on December 2006, are still being tidied up. The last round of job evaluation reviews was scheduled for early this month. These reviews had arisen out of the senior nurses' scoping working party, which was part of the first MECA. Between 1200 and 1400 senior nursing positions were evaluated and, of those, around 10 percent had been the subject of review requests, the majority of which have been sustained.

Another aspect of the scoping working party was the need for nationally consistent titles for senior nursing positions across the 21 DHBs. This work has now been completed and endorsement meetings for the new titles will be held from November 20 to December 8. Only nurses in the positions affected by the title changes will be able to vote. The number of senior nurse titles has been considerably reduced.