A majority of primary health-care nurses, represented by New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa, have accepted an offer that will see their pay increase by five per cent immediately and another three per cent in July, said Tracey Morgan, spokesperson for the NZNO primary health-care bargaining team.
That is a total pay rise of eight per cent which will close the pay gap by that much but there is still a gap, Morgan said, and NZNO was still researching the full extent of that gap.
There are currently about 3500 primary health nurses who are NZNO members.
“We’ve won a battle but not the war to get every nurse, everywhere paid the same,” Morgan said.
‘We’ve won a battle but not the war to get every nurse, everywhere paid the same.’
“Until that pay gap is closed, and pay parity is achieved, we will likely continue to see the exodus of nurses from primary health to hospitals.
“We need nurses to stay in primary health, otherwise the crisis we see in our hospitals is going to get worse,” Morgan said.
‘We need nurses to stay in primary health, otherwise the crisis we see in our hospitals is going to get worse.’
“Too many people don’t have access to primary health-care, as many GP practices aren’t taking new enrolments because they are finding it too hard to get nurses and doctors.
“This problem spills over to hospitals, too many people end up there which creates tsunamis that overwhelm an already in crisis secondary health workforce,” Morgan said.
The PHC bargaining team started talks with 477 PHC employers in August last year.
“We’ve gone from no offer to hōhā to a 2.5 per cent offer last year, to what we have now. So that’s progress but we will not be stopping there. Right now, we have a bit of breathing time to plan our next steps in the bigger fight for pay parity.”
Other matters the team managed to negotiate in the PHC multi-employer collective agreement included:
- Full reimbursement of annual practicing certificate fees
- Long service leave from 10 years instead of 15
- A lump sum payment equivalent to 3% of base pay back to July 2024 for qualifying staff
- A 5% increase from ratification and signing
- 3% (or the full capitation funding increase if less than 3%) from 1 July 2025