Middlemore Security Guards To Ask Public For 5%

MEDIA RELEASE
21 04 05

“Donations Please”

Middlemore Security Guards to ask public for 5% pay increase their boss won’ t part with…

Middlemore Security guards will take further industrial action this weekend. Cars entering Middlemore Hospital this Friday will be stopped and their drivers asked to make a donation for the hospital so management can pay the extra $7 an hour it will take (in total) to give all the security guards a 5% pay increase.

The Middlemore security guards, members of the Service and Food Workers Union, will be outside the hospital with buckets collecting donations as they take more strike action over ANZAC Weekend.

The guards are on $14.44 an hour, so a 5% increase would mean an increase of 72 cents an hour, 36 cents an hour more than they have been offered.

As there are only 20 security guards covered by the union collective agreement, the difference between what the guards are seeking and what the Counties-Manukau District Health Board is offering is a total of $7.20 an hour for all the workers combined.

That is nothing in a multi-million dollar budget, says SFWU delegate Temu Faireka. In mediation last Friday, the Middlemore security guards were offered 2.5% backdated to November 2004 when their collective agreement expired, plus another 1% if they agreed to 12-hour shifts. However, the offer comes with a sting in its tail.

“If we agree to 12-hour shifts, we won’t get any overtime, so 1% in no way compensates for that,” Mr Faireka says.

He says the guards do not get any penal rates for working unsociable hours at night or on weekends, unlike most hospital workers, and they don’t get danger money either. Middlemore Hospital has one of the highest rates of violence against clinical staff in the country and the security guards play a vital role in calming and restraining violent patients.

The guards are asking for a one-off payment only for union members in addition to their claim for a 5% increase.

ENDS

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