Nurses hint at wider strike

Press, 6 December 1985, Page 5

Nurses hint at wider strike

If the Canterbury Hospital Board thought that nurses’ industrial action would be restricted to elective surgery only, it should think again, nurses said yesterday. Commenting on remarks by the board’s medical superintendent-in-chief, Dr Ross Fairgray, the southern regional officer of the Nurses’ Association, Ms Steph Breen, said that nurses were very angry about their wage offer. Dr Fairgray said at a meeting earlier this week that he presumed the industrial action would include only routine surgery. “His presumptions fall short of nurses’ intentions in the Canterbury area,” Ms Breen said. Nurses in Christchurch had met this week, and were deciding what action to take. If no move was

made to re-enter negotiations, the action would begin on December 17. The extent of industrial action would be announced early next week.

Ms Breen said that student nurses and nurse aids would also be included in the action. The students would be particularly affected by the offer, rejected by the association last week

Included in ' the Health Services Committee’s offer was a tag that nurses would not get a 6 per cent adjustment expected by State servants early next year.

Ms Breen said that the students, although they were not included in the wage offer, would not get that 6 per cent rise, and therefore would not get a pay rise at all.