Health NZ said the new offer included "salary increases between 3.5 and 11 percent". (File photo) Photo: RNZ
Senior doctors have criticised Health NZ's latest pay offer saying it amounts to a pay cut that won't cover inflation.
Health NZ's lead for industrial relations, Robyn Shearer, said the new offer - which covered a 21-month term - included "salary increases between 3.5 percent and 11 percent depending on experience and funding for incentives to help retain senior doctors in hard to staff areas and specialities".
"We value our doctors and want to do the best we can for them. We are committed to reaching a settlement with ASMS [the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists] and we believe the offer made today is a fair and reasonable one," she said.
According to Health NZ the new offer means:
- A first-year specialist would receive a $17,700 (9.5 percent) increase on base salary and all other salary related remuneration (e.g. KiwiSaver).
- A second-year specialist would receive a $11,800 (6.2 percent) increase on base salary and all other salary related remuneration (e.g. KiwiSaver).
- These specialists would also receive further increase of 1.5 percent over the course of the proposed settlement
- Specialists on Step 4 and above would get between 3.5 percent or 3.8 percent applied over a 21-month period.
Health NZ's offer also included a ring-fenced $34m fund to help retain specialists in hard-to-staff areas.
"We have listened to the union on their concerns regarding growing and retaining our senior doctor workforce," Shearer said.
Pay offer won't even cover inflation - union
Thousands of operations and specialists appointments had to be cancelled during the unprecedented 24-hour strike by 5500 members of the ASMS in May.
ASMS executive director Sarah Dalton was doubtful the union's 5500 members would find the new offer acceptable.
Health NZ had "misrepresented" what the offer would mean for first and second-year specialists, she said.
"When you annualise that they are between 2.1 and 3.2 percent annually. Ninety percent of our members under this offer would receive about 1.16 percent per year.
"So yet another under CPI [consumer price index] real term pay cut for senior doctors and dentists."
Health NZ had refused to discuss details of how the proposed incentive fund would be applied, nor was the agency prepared to "cement it" in the collective agreement, she said.
"A capped sum of $17m a year for recruitment and retention doesn't really stack up compared with the $384m they're currently paying contingent staff.
"There's quite a lot to say about Health NZ as an incompetent employer, which is driving people out of salaried work into locum work and temporary gigs."
With no clear indication of how the payments would be disbursed, there was a risk that Health NZ would want to scrap other allowances already in place, she said.
"We've seen this shambolic approach to the ED shift allowance that we won in the last bargaining round and which is still not properly applied across the country.
"So I guess our trust in the competence of Health NZ to put these things in place is very low."
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