Celebrating the national pay deal and a well-run campaign.

"The completion of a national pay deal for nurses, midwives and caregivers working in the public sector corrects generations of injustice against women workers," said NZNO chief executive Geoff Annals at a celebration in Wellington last month of NZNO's successful Fair Pay Campaign.

Around 50 people, including NZNO staff and activists from around the Wellington region, union and political leaders, district health board representatives and Council of Trade Unions' (CTU) staff, attended the celebration, during which commemorative plates were presented to key campaign supporters. The celebrations were just one in a series of events around the country.

Annals acknowledged two people in particular: NZNO organising services manager Laila Harre, who, he said, saw a collective of working women with a real grievance and then joined that collective; and NZNO president Jane O'Malley who gave focus to this collective of women.

O'Malley presented the first award plate to CTU president Ross Wilson who congratulated NZNO for "building up an irresistible case", getting overwhelming public support for that case and winning "an important and historic settlement". "The case was won by the work you put in," he said. "Unions have to keep on campaigning if they are going to achieve their goals."

The DHB lead advocate in the negotiations, Maryan Street, also congratulated NZNO for a well-organised, successful campaign. "You raised the profile of your campaign and you deserve all credit," she said. "The negotiations took place at a timely moment when you had a government that understood the importance of what you were trying to achieve.

"NZNO can also be proud that they had a negotiating team that made life difficult. I want to thank them for their professional tenacity." Street presented Annals with the first copy of the 126-page collective agreement, hot off the press.

Membership growth

Since the settlement of the DHB MECA, covering 20,000 nurses, midwives and health assistants, NZNO membership has increased dramatically. NZNO has gained over 1500 new members in the past two months, with total membership now 39,000.

"The membership growth is an endorsement of the settlement and the power of membership campaigns," said O'Malley. "People can see that being in a union and joining together to bargain collectively is the way to achieve better pay and conditions."

Some of the membership growth was as a result of a bargaining fee agreement endorsed in a national ballot of DHB employees, she said. (see news story, p8)

For a small amount extra, those employees who had not been NZNO members could join NZNO and receive all the benefits of full membership. Those who decided not to pay the bargaining fee or join NZNO would not automatically receive the new pay increases.

"That can only mean NZNO will be an even stronger bargaining position when we return to the next negotiations at the end of next year," said O'Malley.