The lab workers' union, APEX, said the company was paying 30 percent less than Te Whatu Ora-run labs. Photo: 123rf.com
Staff at one of the country's biggest laboratory services will strike again - on Friday and Monday - after last-ditch pay talks this week failed to break the long-running impasse.
Awanui Labs operates all the community and hospital medical laboratories in the South Island and the Wellington region, and is 95 percent publicly funded.
The lab workers' union, APEX, said the company was paying 30 percent less than Te Whatu Ora-run labs.
APEX spokesperson David Munro said during bargaining, the company claimed Te Whatu Ora would not give them additional funding to boost pay rates.
"Our members expect to be paid the same as colleagues doing identical work in the directly run Te Whatu Ora labs," he said.
"How Awanui funds that is their business, but the fact of the matter is that if they don't step up to pay parity with the directly run public labs they will lose their professional workforce over time."
An experienced laboratory technician moving from an Awanui lab to a public lab would receive a 30 percent increase to do exactly the same job, he said.
"And in Christchurch that is only a move to a lab 11km away."
Lab scientists and technicians have already carried out several strikes this year as their dispute has escalated.
Strike details
- Friday 17 November - all day, Dunedin, Frankton, Wellington, Nelson, Timaru, Oamaru, Napier, Hastings
- Monday 20 November - all day, Christchurch, Ashburton, Invercargill
Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand - which funds 95 percent of Awanui's contracts - said it was working with the labs to ensure patients who need urgent tests during the strikes will get them.
Community Health System Improvement and Innovation group manager Mark Powell said as a funder, Te Whatu Ora had been "given assurance of the contingency planning underway".
"We are liaising with the labs to ensure patients who require urgent and critical care receive the services they need, including testing carried out at hospitals.
"Wider questions about the ongoing dispute should be addressed to the company and the workers' representatives."
According to the union, Awanui Labs said Te Whatu Ora would not give them extra funding to them to close what was now a 30 percent pay gap with identical workers in Te Whatu Ora run labs.
That follows the recent pay equity settlement for all Te Whatu Ora-employed allied, scientific and technical workers.
Powell said the settlement - which followed a legal claim by unions - did not mean private sector health service providers were not valued.
"Te Whatu Ora acknowledges that increasing pay for some health workforces can have knock-on effects on other health workforces, particularly if pay gaps between comparable roles emerge."
The agency's health workforce plan included several actions to strengthen the healthcare workforce and it was working with key stakeholders, including private sector providers, to implement them.
Awanui has been approached for comment.