Psychiatric nurses’ wage negotiations to resume

Press, 16 January 1986, Page 6

Psychiatric nurses’ wage negotiations to resume

PA Wellington Psychiatric nursing representatives and their employers’ body will resume formal negotiations on January 28. Health Services Pay Commission representatives agreed in Wellington yesterday to inspect some psychiatric and psychopaedic nursing assistants’ and students’ workplaces in the meantime. The employers’ representatives will next week see the responsibilities and duties of these hospital workers. The decision was taken at a meeting between Public Service Association and employers’ representatives, independently chaired by an industrial mediator, Mr Maurice Teen. The meeting followed in-

dustrial action by psychiatric nurses in some parts of New Zealand over Christmas in protest at nil or minimum pay offers by employers. Union representatives have been seeking better wages and conditions for psychiatric assistants who make up nearly half of some hospitals’ staff. Students’ conditions are also under review. A P.S.A. spokesman said

yesterday that reasonable progress was being made with the health services’ employing body. “We are hopeful that the employers, by seeing psychiatric and psychopaedic assistants’ workplaces, will appreciate the full responsibilities of the group concerned. He hoped the benefit of the exercise would be evident when negotiations resumed on January 28 and 29.