25-hour strike notice issued for resident doctors at Te Whatu Ora

A strike notice covering 2500 resident doctors employed by Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand and members of the New Zealand Resident Doctors Association (NZRDA) was issued today.

The strike will be a full withdrawal for 25 hours from 0700 on Tuesday 7 May to 0800 on Wednesday 8 May. Further strike action in May will be balloted on by members this week.

Bargaining reached an impasse last week when Te Whatu Ora proposed options on pay to NZRDA which included a menu of unacceptable elements such as:

• Pay cuts of up to 12% affecting up to 300 registrar positions including those training in shortage specialties such as radiation oncology, psychiatry, pathology, public health and medical subspecialties like rheumatology and endocrinology;
• A pay cut for general practice trainee positions of up to $13,000;
• Salary rates 5% less than was offered to another RMO union;
• Lowering the cap on salary progression for registrars who have yet to be accepted onto a vocational training programme, often surgical sub-specialty registrars, or women with children;
• Removing the extra step in the salary scale once a registrar passes their first specialist training examination.

“Te Whatu Ora has proposed an unacceptable set of remuneration options, including what would be pay cuts or a pay freeze for nearly 600 registrars including 300 GP trainees in 2025,” said Dr Deborah Powell, NZRDA National Secretary.

“The cruel irony is that Te Whatu Ora has presented us with a pay offer which represents a significant uplift of around 15-20% and up to 25% in salary rates for some resident doctors. Because of the salary model in our collective agreement however, the impact on our members is uneven and unfair.”

“Our members are united in not accepting a pay deal which would cut the pay of any Resident Doctors, especially at a time when the RMO workforce already has 500 vacancies and we struggle to fill the current number of GP training places,” continued Dr Powell.

“We also have two key non-remuneration elements unresolved in our bargaining;

1. Te Whatu Ora have not offered any contractual commitment to the agreed principle that the system should retain resident doctors as senior doctors.
2. The employer has not committed to work to phase out consecutive long days on rosters. Consecutive long days require a doctor to do two back to back 15 hour shifts over a weekend in addition to work during the week either side.”

“We have a simple message to Te Whatu Ora in our bargaining – every resident doctor counts. An uplift in some resident doctors pay cannot be paid for by pay cuts for other resident doctors,” concluded Dr Powell.