Moving towards true workplace equity.

NZNO members and staff are gearing up for negotiations for the second national district health board multi-employer collective agreement. Some work agreed at the last negotiations remains to be completed and there are challenges aplenty for the upcoming negotiations.

This year is the "Year of the Dog" according to the Chinese calendar. This new year began on January 29 and is predicted to be a good one. A Chinese oracle in Hong Kong has forecast that every dog should have his or her day this year. Apparently, good fortune will favour the brave dog who seeks opportunities, and earnings should swing up.

We hope this means 2006 will be an auspicious year for NZNO members, particularly as we contemplate and commence planning for another New Year and another "year of the MECA" (multi-employer collective agereement).

The work that arose from the first national MECA has mostly been completed within the agreed timeframes. This was due to the support of delegates, members and staff, who worked very hard to achieve the outcomes.

The professional development recognition programme (PDRP) alignment nationally was completed on time by July 1, 2005, as was the hospital aid merit step criteria work, with a slight delay in the implementation phase. The Safe Staffing/Healthy Workplaces Committee of Inquiry is on target to have a joint report, with recommendations, completed by July this year or sooner.

Senior nurses' scoping exercise

The senior nurses' scoping exercise was a big ask in such a tight timeframe. There have been unavoidable dealys and there is still work to be completed. But we now have a greater understanding of the complexities of the senior nursing and midwifery rotes in our public hospitals. The fact that there are a significant number of requests for reviews indicates we have not quite resolved all the issues identified during this process. We are still to complete the standardisation of titles across the country but we are closer to understanding the work performed or, at least, the importance of describing that work more specifically.

We waited until the work of the senior nurses' scoping working party was completed before embarking on the process to standardise the conditions of duly authorised officers and midwives, to ensure there were no overlapping issues. NZNO also continues to pursue other important issues that were key to our Fair Pay Campaign. NZNO's background paper "Nurses' and Midwives' Pay" underpinned our successful campaign and, for the first time in more than a decade, we were able to provide evidence that our pay had fallen well behind other professionals in New Zealand and nurses and midwives overseas. (1) The backgrounder suggested a bench mark for the 2004 negotiations that provided parity with those other professions.

The worth of nurses' and midwives' work

What this work didn't do was establish what the actual worth of nurse's and midwives' work. During and since the MECA negotiations, employers and politicians alike have been quoted as saying the MECA settlement gave public sector nurses and midwives a "pay jolt" Obviously in negotiations this year, we need to maintain the parity achieved, but also to look at what "equity" would mean to us.

NZNO is represented on various pay and employment equity working groups involving the state sector including health, education and public services. We are working with other state sector unions and Government representatives. Part of the work consists of developing processes or review audits which will be piloted in five district health boards to assist those organisations to find out if: women and men have an equitable share of rewards; women and men participate equitably in all areas of the organisations; and women and men are treated with respect and fairness. The Pay and Employment Equity Unit is also working on a gender neutral job evaluation tool which, if applied in a similar way in New Zealand as it was in the United Kingdom, may indicate that remedial pay settlements are required and/or other initiatives to improve the equity of the working environment. Superannuation was another key issue in the last MECA round. We agreed to seek resolution of this issue by working with other state sector unions and the Government. This process has just begun. The Minister of State Services, Annette King, has appointed the members of the working party and it was due to get underway on February 10. The purpose of this working party is to look at how the State Services Retirement Savings Scheme could be extended to the wider state sector, including nurses and midwives. I am the NZNO representative on this working party and will ensure the reasons this is a key employment equity issue for our members are well presented.

Clear, consistent and timely communication was a factor in the success of our campaign in 2004/ 05. It is not easy trying to ensure more than 20,000 members across diverse workplaces are informed as quickly as possible. NZNO's delegate structures do a great job, but they need your support and activism to help get the message across to all who need to know. In a few weeks we will be formally starting communication about the issues for this years' negotiations, scheduled to start in early November. The MECA expires on December 31, 2006.

Let's hope the Year of the Dog will be one, as the Chinese Oracle suggests, for those who are brave and seek opportunities. It takes some bravery to stick together and work collectively, rather than taking the easier individual road. We proved last time that we could achieve more for everyone by working together. Let's keep that focus and take another step towards real fairness and equity in our workplaces.

Reference

1) NZNO. (2003) Backgrounder: New Zealand Nurse and Midwife Pay. Wellington; NZNO

By NZNO industrial adviser Glenda Alexander