NZNO's Blog

Monthly Archives: February 2015


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All the way for fairness, justice, value and equal pay

Film-Colour-160Yesterday the Government announced that on 1 April the minimum wage will increase by 50 cents to $14.75 an hour.

A 50 cent increase in the minimum wage is a shame on our whole society. As the Council of Trade Unions says, we are now in a situation where the minimum wage is also the maximum wage for hundreds of thousands of workers.

Workers in aged care, who are underpaid because the work they do is seen as “women’s work”, are being unfairly impacted by this poverty-wage. Caregiver roles are physically and emotionally exhausting with many caregivers going above and beyond what is required.

There is a huge injustice happening here. Aged care workers are bearing the brunt of unfair gender-based pay rates, and a Government minimum wage rate that seems designed to increase poverty and hardship.

Aged care workers are providing care to residents that is worth much, much more than they are getting paid. The residents benefit, the employers benefit and the workers don’t.

Oh, I am sure they are “valued” for what they do. Every time I hear a Government Minister or Rest home owner talking about the aged care workforce they talk about the incredibly important and valuable work aged care workers do. To their shame, it’s a value that is not being reciprocated with an appropriate pay rate.

NZNO and SFWU members have been working for justice for aged care workers and others in low-paid jobs for many years. We have negotiated collective agreement, lobbied successive Governments, and worked together with other groups and organisations who care deeply about fairness and equality, like we do.

A big leap forward in our struggle came at the end of last year when union member Kristine Bartlett won her equal pay court case. The next step is for the employment court to decide what the monetary value of equal pay is. When that happens we expect aged care workers around the country to benefit enormously.

We’re going All the way for equal pay and we’re going to win. This pathetic increase in the minimum wage won’t slow us down – every injustice just strengthens our resolve. Watch this space.

 

 


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A demand to be taken seriously

dilbert-ceo-payNZNO delegate Ady Piesse is an activist for fairness at work and an advocate for collective action. This blog post has previously been published as a comment on Facebook. 

I’m a thinker….I think a lot. Sometimes I’m accused of over thinking, but generally my thinking usually provides me with ideas or helps me problem solve.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I got to thinking – what do I do in my job that is so different from my CEO’s that justifies our salaries?

At the start of every shift I check my equipment so if that cardiac arrest, acute SOB, trauma or the blue floppy baby arrives unannounced, I have the confidence that myself and my colleagues will be able to use that equipment to potentially save a life.

My CEO makes sure his lap top ‘on’ button works.

I monitor numerous pieces of equipment attached to my patients, checking for those spiralling trends so I can intervene early if I need to.

My CEO monitors computer screens that check to make sure my patients are meeting the six hour targets.

I do ‘end-of-bed-o-grammes’ all day every day, with new patients, existing patients, other nurses’ patients, to monitor change, deterioration or improvement.

My CEO looks at spread sheets to see how hard I’m working or how much harder I can be made to work.

I hold in my hand medication that has the potential to kill or to cure.

My CEO holds a pen, an iPhone.

I sit holding a patient’s hand while a doctor tells her and her family her condition is terminal. I hold a child’s hand. I hold the hand of a terrified patient who can’t breathe. I hug people I only met today and know won’t be here tomorrow.

I don’t know if my CEO has ever held a hand or given a stranger a hug.

Every day I take home people’s stories; for some it will be the worst day of their lives. These people have faces and I know some will never leave my memory.

My CEO takes home statistics.

Some days I leave wondering if I have it in me to keep doing what I’m doing – less is not more in my job – but my CEO seems to think so.

I know it’s all more complex than that.

I use my knowledge and observation skills to think ahead and intervene early to avoid a failure to rescue situation, my CEO uses their knowledge and observations to think strategically, for example.

What I’m thinking doesn’t take away from the important role my CEO plays in the day to day running of my organisation, but thinking simply – that’s about the bones of it.

Then some more thinking. I play a damned important role in this organisation too, so how is it I only get paid maybe a quarter of what my CEO earns?

And why should I feel guilty or scared of standing up and asking for more? So I’ve decided I owe nobody an apology for feeling the way I do.

More thought. Stand up and be counted, get as many colleagues on board as I can to speak out and say enough is enough!

I’ve become quite vocal in the past couple of weeks –I’ve decided to stand up for myself. I’ve realised that complaining to colleagues is not going anywhere. We need to be the very visual faces behind our MECA.

I’m guilty like many of having not gone to meetings in the past, been so apathetic to expect Government and the Boards to realise my worth and support me accordingly – I’ve been ridiculously naive! I know there are many colleagues feeling the same way and I’m hoping my ranting will given colleagues the confidence to stand up too and speak out for change!

MECA representatives at these current negotiations can only push the “we’re serious about this…” boat so far – we need to make ourselves visible to Government and our Boards and not just ask, but demand to be taken seriously,  otherwise we have another long three years of the same and more than likely, a lot worse to come.

So, be at those MECA meetings that are coming up and come with ideas! It’s time we got tough!

 

 


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Care rationing a sad reality

Care rationing web headerNZNO believes every patient has the right to receive quality care, every shift, every day. Nurses, midwives and health-care assistants also have the right to work in safe, supportive environments and be enabled to provide quality care.

The Safe staffing healthy workplaces unit defines care rationing as: “Any occasion when an aspect of a patient’s required care is either missed altogether, unduly delayed, performed to a suboptimal standard or inappropriately delegated to someone not qualified to perform the activity.”

Is care rationing the “new normal” in patient care?  Are failing to take observations and administer medications on time, inability to turn bedridden patients two hourly, skipping hygiene cares, inability to mobilise patients  regularly, failing to provide comprehensive patient education, not answering call bells, all too familiar aspects of too many nurses’ shifts, too often?

Care rationing is unacceptable because it means patients do not receive all the care they require, it exposes patients to unacceptable risks, it can have serious consequences, it increases patient morbidity and mortality, and contravenes people’s rights to health services of an appropriate standard.

Drawing on national and international research, NZNO’s newly-released position statement attributes care rationing to a systems failure due to inadequate staffing or inappropriate skill mix or insufficient time or a combination of these factors.

The position statement was developed to articulate that care rationing is a systems failure, not a failure of individual nurses. We have chosen the term ‘care rationing’ because terms such as ‘missed care’ or ‘care left undone’ imply that an individual nurse is to blame.

Care rationing is not just another form of prioritisation. Prioritisation occurs at the start of a shift when nurses consider the work that has to be done over their shift and what needs to be done first. Care rationing happens in a chaotic way when there are simply not enough staff to do the work and nurses have no control over the situation.”

It doesn’t have to be this way. NZNO has a plan to eliminate care rationing. What we need is:

  • increased funding for DHBs;
  • nursing care made a priority in decision-making;
  • nursing seen as an investment, not a cost;
  • patient-centred models of care;
  • a focus on early intervention and prevention, and nurses working to the full extent of their scope;
  • full implementation of the care capacity demand management programme in all DHBs;
  • effective workforce planning;
  • transparency about staffing levels;
  • funding to address its cultural impacts;
  • immediate action when staffing requirements are not met to ensure patients get the care they need; and
  • patients who are empowered to complain when their needs are not met because of inadequate staffing.

To find out more about care rationing and what NZNO is doing to eliminate it, go to www.nzno.org.nz/carerationing

 

This blog post was developed from an article first published in Kai Taiki Nursing NZ, vol 20, no 6, July 2014.