Talks on nurses’ pay to resume on January 15

Press, 9 January 1986, Page 5

Talks on nurses’ pay to resume on January 15

PA Wellington Stalled wage talks between the Public Service Association and the Health Services Committee over pay rates for psychiatric nursing staff are expected to resume on January 15. The P.S.A. hospitals group chairman, Mr Trevor Warr, said yesterday that the main topic of the negotiations, to be held before a mediator, Mr Maurice Teen, would be rates for assistants and students — who together made up about half the nursing staff in some psychiatric and psychopaedic hospitals. Mr Warr issued a statement after a day-long meeting of the P.S.A. hospitals

group central committee yesterday on the heels of 24hour stoppages in several hospitals last week and further action early this week in hospitals at Tokanui, Lake Alice and Hanmer Springs. The later stoppages were criticised by the P.S.A. president, Mr Colin Hicks, who on Tuesday had said that continued strike action was “unnecessary” when the objective of getting the employers back to the negotiating table had been achieved.

But yesterday Mr Hicks said that the “provocative and insulting” offer on the P.S.A.’s pre-Christmas claim had made direct action in-

evitable. He believed the hospital group members’ direct action had significantly improved their negotiating position. The only issue within the P.S.A. was whether some further action, already notified, should have stopped or be allowed to run its course.

“That debate is now one for the history books,” said Mr Hicks. “The task before us now is to gain some real wage justice for a group of underpaid, under-valued and over-worked members doing a job that would be beyond the emotional resources of most people.”