Te Toka Tumai Auckland Te Whatu Ora nurses who are members of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki O Aotearoa (NZNO) are striking over attempts by Health New Zealand not to pay them for involuntary overtime.
About 370 perioperative (which includes preoperative, theatre and postoperative) nurses working at Auckland City Hospital, Starship Hospital and Greenlane Clinical Centre will strike for two hours on 1 May.
NZNO chief executive Paul Goulter says the perioperative nurses have been doing involuntary and unpaid overtime for years because they put their patients first.
“They are fed up with their goodwill being taken advantage of. They have sacrificed enough and want recognition for the years of work they have done.
“Te Whatu Ora has now raised a last minute claim in collective agreement negotiations which can only be seen as a shameful attempt to avoid paying these nurses appropriate compensation for working past their shifts to help patients having operations,” Paul Goulter says.