The Employment Court is meeting under urgency this morning to consider an injunction to stop a planned strike by Allied Health workers at public hospitals tomorrow.
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The Public Service Association (PSA) union is planning to strike for 24 hours from 6am after more than 70 groups voted to strike, following 16 months of failed talks over pay and conditions.
The District Health Boards this week lodged the injunction to get them to lift the strike notice, saying it would bundle pay equity and wage issues together at a bad time, during Omicron.
PSA organiser Will Matthews however says his organisation is "really, really dismayed" by the legal attempt, and DHBs have had plenty of time before now to address the issues.
"We believe that the best way to ensure high-quality healthcare for New Zealanders is to ensure the wellbeing of healthcare workers. The DHBs have a workforce of exhausted, overworked, underpaid and undervalued workers who are now seeing that their employers would rather take them to court than pay them fairly," he told Morning Report.
He said the PSA and DHBs had negotiated life-preserving services, and included clauses for DHBs to be able to call more staff in should they be required.
He also argued the timing - with the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 increasing throughout the country - showed the need for health workers to be paid fairly.
"I think the fact that we need to talk about how critical these workers are demonstrates how outrageous it is that we had to resort to strike action to have a conversation about them being paid fairly in the first place."
DHB spokesperson Keriana Brooking said the DHBs had worked hard with the PSA both in preparing for the strike and in efforts to prevent it.
"We asked the PSA right up till Monday evening to reconsider and call the strike action off, they declined on Monday night. We felt on Tuesday we needed to use every effort and so we filed a court injunction."
She said the next step in the negotiations was for facilitation, and that was set down for Monday and Tuesday next week.
"It's an organised process through the ERA and that's the dates that we have agreed which is why we have asked them respectfully to withdraw the strike notice for tomorrow," she said.
"Omicron is accelerating, we respect the right to strike, we're working with them on life-preserving services, but the amount of pressure we're receiving from Omicron means we want to try every avenue to make sure that we have enough staff available tomorrow."
"We're working with them on facilitation for next Monday and Tuesday which is why we asked them to call the strike off so we can move to facilitation."
She said the DHBs had asked for a fast decision in the courts so they could prepare in case the strike went ahead.
"The right for them to call the strike off, they are actually able to do right up till tomorrow morning. We're encouraging them to do that, we've both agreed to facilitation and that's the line we're taking."
The court's expected to release its decision later this morning, allowing limited time for the union to communicate with its members. Matthews said the PSA would be notifying union members via text and email about the decision.
