Radius resthome workers to vote on strike action
About 900 resthome workers employed by the Radius group will vote on strike action at stopwork meetings across the country today.
The Service and Food Workers Union says the meetings follow six months of negotiations over a staff claim that pay rates at the chain have fallen behind industry standards.
The union says 900 Radius resthome workers are members of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation and the Service and Food Workers Union Ngā Ringa Tota.
Joint union spokesperson Chrissy Darth claims Radius has failed to ‘pass on’ District Health Board funding two years in a row, leaving care assistants and other health professionals out of pocket.
Radius is privately owned with chief executive Brien Cree being the majority shareholder.
"We've been in negotiations with two unions since September and they're unhappy with our offer," he told NBR.
"Aged care is funded through the government and last year we got a fee increase of 1.72% and we've offered them that and they're not happy with that, we've offered them as much we can and they're not happy," Mr Cree says, adding that it's a government issue around the under funding of aged care.
Signup to free NBR email alerts here
Back to home
Back to top
Print
Email
Share
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Google
Yahoo
Technorati
Scoopit
NBR SERVICES
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Sign up for NBR subscriber content or email alerts
Latest
Comments and questions3
wIPING OLD PEOPLES BUMS AND CHANGING URINE SMELLING BEDS WHAT MAKES THEM THINK THEY SHOULD GET A PAY RISE.
THE WHARFIES ARE MORE DESERVING.
Unions are never happy – their parasitic existence means they can only ever ride on the coat tails of other’s hard work. Offer them 20% and they’d want 25%. The unions always have all the answers as to how to “fix” things – except when challenged to fix the issue themselves directly.
Instead of bemoaning the hard work of others, why don’t the Unions start a stevedoring company and rest homes – with their own money – then that way they can “fix” all the pay issues, even paying school leavers $15/hr+ whilst solving all the employment issues at the same time – as well as creating business’s that will keep generating profits back to the unions – then they can give hundreds of thousands more to the Labour Party in return for yet more unbalanced employment laws should Labour ever return to government.
Here’s a challenge for the unions – put up or shut up!
Ever wondered why the unions haven’t started their own business’s as alternatives to the “evil Baron business owners”? They have all the answers – is it just that they’re lazy or more mouth than action?
C’mon union members everywhere - demand your union start alternative business’s.
I am not sure Mr Cree is the majority shareholder: http://www.business.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companies/1302030/shareholdings Also one should be clear there are a few “Radius” this one is RADIUS RESIDENTIAL CARE LIMITED, a different ownership to Radius Properties.
Post new comment or question
To share this article, click on a service below