August 2005

Industrial relations change: Claim vs reality

Many claims and counter claims are being made about the impact of the Howard Government's proposed changes to industrial relations laws to be introduced into the Parliament later this year.

Our NZ nursing colleagues endured very similar changes in the 1990's when the NZ Government introduced its Employment Contracts Act (ECA) and their experience clearly shows what nurses in Australia can expect.

Like the Australian Government, the NZ Government claimed its new industrial relations regime would provide greater freedom of choice, flexibility, protection from exploitation, economic growth, productivity, higher incomes and employer and employee co-operation.

Adopting measures comparable to those announced by the Australian Government, the then NZ conservative government introduced voluntary unionism; the ability of employees to choose to represent themselves in negotiations or disputes; the replacement of awards and agreements with new collective employment agreements which only applied to named employees; severe limitations to the right to take industrial action; and individual agreements replacing expired collective agreements.

But despite the government's claims, NZ nurses quickly found the reality was very different. In 1993, the NZNO presented the following details to the International Council of Nurses (ICN) Congress in Madrid, Spain, outlining the impact the ECA had on nurses and highlighted the difference between the government's claims and the reality for nurses.

The main changes to private hospital conditions pushed through by employers included:

Hours of Work
The employer was able to determine hours of work, and the requirement to provide two consecutive days off and a nine-hour break between shifts was removed.

Leave
Annual leave was cut back from four weeks to three in some agreements. In others, nurses were required to reach a certain number of years of service before accessing four weeks annual leave.

Sick leave and bereavement leave entitlements were reduced as was the ability to accumulate leave.

Allowances
Many individual contracts removed allowances for meals, night duty, on-call and higher duties.

The situation was even worse in the private sector, where employers were able to reduce the influence of the NZNO and seek individual contracts with a fragmented and demoralised nursing workforce.

In the six years the ECA was in force (it was repealed by the newly elected Clark Labor Government in 1997), there was no evidence that nurses wages and employment conditions improved. Not surprisingly, many nurses left the profession, dramatically increasing the workload for those who remained.

As NZNO president Jane O'Malley has stated: 'The whole decimation of the industrial power of nurses happened so quickly, people hardly recognised it was happening until it was over, and it has taken ten years to rebuild. They were bleak times and I wouldn't want to see it being repeated.'

A summary of the NZ nurses' experience can also be found in the ANJ, June 2005, p.25 or click here to view the feature online.

Government's claim		Nurses' reality
Freedom of choice		Inferior outcomes
The government claimed the new legislation would give employers and workers the freedom to choose their own enterprise bargaining arrangement.		Most nurses were forced to accept inferior individual employment agreements and employers adopted a concerted strategy to keep the NZNO out of worksites, particularly when agreements were being negotiated. A favorite tactic of employers was to deny the NZNO access unless staff agreed to meet with the union one at a time, often in the corridor.
Wage increases will be linked to productivity		No recognition of productivity improvements
The government argued the ECA would encourage productivity gains which would lead to higher wages.		Despite productivity increases through increased inpatient admissions and reduced lengths of stay, as the table shows, public sector nurse wages were effectively frozen, and in some instances fell. Public Sector Nurses Percentage Wage Increases* 1988/ 1989 1989/ 1990 1990/ 1991 1991/ 1992 Charge Nurse 2.1   1.9 5.4 0.0 Staff Nurse 2.4   2.0 4.0 0.0 Enrolled Nurse 2.7   1.9 3.9 0.0 Hospital Aide 3.4   2.0 3.9 0.0 Consumer Price Index 4.7 11.6 3.3 0.8 Prevailing Weekly Wage 8.1   4.9 4.2 3.7 Source: Myths and Reality: The Effect of the Employment Contracts Act on Nurses in New Zealand (1991-1993), New Zealand Nurses Organisation, 1993.
Improved conditions		Conditions slashed
The government claimed the ECA would result in a range of enhanced working conditions for nurses.		In the public sector, many existing conditions were removed and others were reduced, including: long service leave; overtime; parental leave payments for part time nurses; and provisions relating to access to sick leave. Public sector nurses were also faced with the following changes to their contracts of employment: Nurses were required to sign new individual contracts before being given any increased hours of work or casual work; Nurses were threatened with losing their regular shifts of work if they did not sign the individual contract; Nurses were told they would be made redundant or sacked if they didn't sign the employment contract; and New staff were given no choice but to sign the revised contract if they wanted the job.

Nick Blake
ANF Federal Industrial Officer