Source: New Zealand Nurses Organisation
Members of New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa employed at Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora will tomorrow (Wednesday 9 October) deliver a giant overdue invoice for $2.1 billion for Holiday Act remediation.
The overdue invoice has been signed by more than 6000 NZNO members and will be presented to Te Whatu Ora CEO Margie Apa at her office.
Te Whatu Ora has been working to calculate entitlements for around 228,000 workers since 2016. It was revealed in August it had stopped hiring consultants needed to complete this work.
NZNO chief executive Paul Goulter says nurses are increasingly frustrated by the years-long delays in getting paid what they are owed.
“This fiasco has been dragging on for years. It is time for Te Whatu Ora to prioritise these payments for their hardworking nurses.
“Paying staff correctly for the work they perform is a minimum expectation of any employer. This is effectively wage theft.
“Nurses deserve better than ongoing delays and lack of certainty about when this work will be finalised,” Paul Goulter says.
