Pay talks between senior doctors and district health boards have stalled and doctors are to hold stopwork meetings next month to decide what action to take.
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Their union, the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, said they were asking for a moderate pay rise but the DHBs were offering no pay increase.
It is asking members to stop work for up to two hours next month to discuss their next steps.
A spokesperson for district health boards said they were factoring the government's expectation about employment relations and pay into their negotiations.
ASMS executive director Sarah Dalton said in a statement specialists were fatigued and suffering high levels of burnout as they juggled entrenched staffing shortages, overflowing hospitals and overstretched services.
They had also absorbed additional pressures due to the Covid-19 backlog.
Nurses and DHBs are back in talks today to try to resolve their dispute before the next strike.