NZRDA MECA BARGAINING UPDATE
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5 May 2016 Dear Colleagues, The employer’s team had taken an adjournment after bargaining in early April to seek further instruction from the CEOs, hence the delay in recommencing discussions until this week. The CEOs feedback was as follows: 1.
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The CEOs are sympathetic to the 7 nights and 12 days issue, but: a. Don’t like the use of the word “unsafe”; and b. Don’t necessarily think a maximum of 4 nights or 10:4/11:3 is the right rostering alternative. They would prefer a process looking at rosters from scratch, taking service delivery, training and fatigue into consideration. They also don’t want the 2/3rds agreement provision to apply to this process. The CEOs want to see a drop in pay to accompany the introduction of safe hours.
So we went back to the beginning: 1. Safe is the right word. What we have been working is evidenced to be unsafe and has negative impacts on RMOs wellbeing. This needs to be remedied. 2. The DHBs committed to work back to a maximum of 60 hours in 1985… and we are still waiting. Admittedly we have made some progress; we have split nights and 10:4 or 11:3/spilt weekend rosters around NZ, simply not enough of them. So we know the rostering options we have proposed can be done, without negatively impacting on training or service delivery. Notably the employers have not proposed any alternatives, either during the processes we have already been through that have successfully resulted in better rostering, or in the 5 months since the employers received our claims. 3. The preference to not agree to baseline rostering patterns, combined with the desire to avoid 2/3rds agreement by the affected RMOs suggests to us that the employers might (as some have done) produce horrid rosters in the hope the RMOs will reject any change. 4. The employers are still after clause 8.1.2. We again clarified that this is our penal rate – an amount factored into salary to compensate for working unsocial hours. Other health workers get T1/4, T1/2 and T2 as penal rates; we have 8.1.2. We are not going to reduce the number of unsocial hours we work, so we are not inclined to give up the payment that compensates us for this work. We did note that should the employers wish to propose an alternative penal rate to 8.1.2 we would look at it, and of course we have agreed to a remuneration review during the term of this MECA which no doubt will give consideration to this matter. As you can probably imagine, some stern words were spoken, however this seemed to help. NZRDA had already identified the rosters affected by the change (see attached document that identifies which rosters and the timeframe for implementation) and calculated a rough additional FTE (145.6) required to implement the change. We had factored in when the new rosters should be introduced to coincide with uptake in additional graduates from our medical schools as well as the current budgeted but unfilled positions in the DHBs. Overall, we believe the change over a 2 and ½ year timeframe is 0 – 0.61% of the RMO budget. Worst case scenario, if we didn’t have any new graduates and had to pay for all the additional positions it would equate to 3.9% of the RMO budget or ~$15 million over the 2 and ½ years. 1
NZRDA MECA BARGAINING UPDATE
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5 May 2016 By the end of day 1, the employers had started to (independently) call for the numbers from the DHBs. A good sign although you may be asking why they didn’t do that months ago – we were, but looking to the positive at least they were now. Their “back of an envelope” calculation of 300 additional FTE came down to 260 by the morning of day two however that was clearly still an overestimate, so further work is being done. We meet again Monday afternoon to see if we can’t get a better agreement on what the likely impact is. Onto the other issues: first those that are agreed (remembering that nothing is ever formally agreed until the entire package for settlement is completed) then the issues we have an impasse / no agreement on. The Following Have Been Agreed
A lump sum payment to members of NZRDA (exact amount yet to be agreed but it will compensate for the delayed introduction of the first 1% pay rise). 1% effective 1 June 2016, 2% 1 March 2017 and a further 2% March 2018 is in the ballpark. Term through to mid 2019. A means to ensure non-members do not get all the benefits negotiated by NZRDA on your behalf (specifically the monetary advantages). DHB commitment to maintaining general registration for second years (as they have to for first years). New Clause “A part time employee shall only be required to work out-of-hours in proportion to their contracted ordinary hours, unless agreed otherwise by the individual employee and the employing DHB.” Improved additional duties rates Current Rate $45 $60 $75
New Rate $55 $70 $90
Current Rate $100 $125
New Rate $115 $140
On the 72 hour penalty, the current penalty for breaching 72 rostered hours will be changed to 72 hours worked on the implementation date for improved rostering. New Clause: “Employees shall not be rostered to more than 30% of their duties on night shift. For the purposes of this clause a night shift is defined as one where any 8 hours falls between the hours of 2200 and 0800. Employees and employers may agree to vary this 30% maximum by agreement.” For registrars on call, the on call allowance will be $25.00 per hour (rather than $4.00) when requested by the employer to undertake an additional period of on call to cover for an absent colleague on leave or where there is a vacancy on the roster (but not if there is an agreed “RMO initiated swap”). Payment for telephone advice when on call has been extended to all RMOs; the overall financial cap has been removed. Te Ora membership will be reimbursed to $300. The fee paid to MCNZ to enable our TIs to then apply for (first year) provisional registration will also be an explicit reimbursement under MECA. We have agreed to a remuneration review. 2
NZRDA MECA BARGAINING UPDATE
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5 May 2016
Not Agreed That CBAs should be paid minimum C salary. Penalty for cross cover outside ordinary hours. This would be subject to a penalty should NZRDA take full enforcement proceedings under the MECA, which we undertook to do in the absence of a voluntary penalty agreement by the employers. Cross cover to be paid at additional duties rates. This has been referred to a relief review under the safer hours process. Additional leave when an RMO agrees with <72hours to do an additional weekend. Having said that if you don’t want to give up a weekend unless given equivalent time off, you can always say “no”. No more than 1:3 weekends for all RMOs (many already have this provision, just not all). Tidy up of the stat holidays provision. The employers claim to increase TOIL notice period to 28days. To give up our sunset clause on the 2/3rds agreement provision. Exchanging meals for an allowance. So what now? 1. 2. 3.
We will try to agree the additional RMOs needed as a result of safer rostering on Monday. This will help the DHBs better “cost” the proposition. The Employer’s team wish to go back to the CEOs to discuss further. Our delegates are meeting Tuesday next week to also discuss the situation further and will come back to you after that to hold meetings and ensure everyone is up to date with what is being proposed and what might happen next.
Please keep an eye out for notices of meetings being held in your area and attend if you can. More information will also be circulated after the delegates meeting ahead of local meetings. And as always you can email us at
[email protected] with any queries.
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