Spotless Services to Pass Funding onto Staff

Media Release 7 June 2007

Spotless Services to Pass all Extra DHB Funding onto Staff – Memorandum of Understanding Agreed

Hospital Sector Funding

Spotless Services has today announced that any additional hospital sector funding granted by the DHBs as a result of current negotiations with the Service and Food Workers Union (SFWU) will be passed onto Spotless staff.

“Spotless is absolutely committed to ensuring any money provided by the DHB’s as a result of current negotiations with the DHBs, ends up with staff. We have made this very, very clear to the SFWU,” announces Spotless Services General Manager, Healthcare, Mark Russell.

A Memorandum of Understanding and auditing mechanisms have now been agreed by Spotless and the DHBs to provide confidence and certainty that all funds are passed through to staff.

Spotless Services provides contract services at more than 20 hospital sites – where its staff include hospital orderlies, cooks, kitchen staff and cleaners.

Bargaining Fees and MECAs

Spotless has also today presented its proposal for a national, single-employer collective contract to the SFWU. However, Spotless Services has stressed that it will not agree to the multi-employer contracts (MECAs) and compulsory bargaining fees also demanded by the SFWU.

“Compulsory bargaining fees would be paid by the employee who is not a union member for them to receive the pay rise. This amounts to compulsory unionism and we do not agree with that, and do not believe that government funding should be used to promote unionisn in this way.”

“A MECA would arise if Spotless, as the SFWU wants, was to mirror the terms and conditions agreed between them and the DHBs. Spotless adds significant value and productivity to the health sector through our own company innovations and competency-based wage structures. DHB’s contract Spotless because they place high value on these benefits. A MECA would mean we could no longer add this value to the sector at a time when productivity is the critical issue in the sector,” says Russell.

“A MECA with contracts all negotiated at the same time, would also strengthen the SFWU’s ability to call disruptive and debilitating national strike action in the health sector to support future wage negotiations,” says Russell.

Strikes and Lockouts

Spotless has also reiterated that if the SFWU withdraws its strike notices, Spotless will also withdraw the lock out notices it issued for health and safety reasons.

“We are eager to avoid the strikes and the disruption they will cause. We have put a proposal to the SFWU and we are ready to talk. If the SFWU calls off its strikes, we will be able to withdraw the lock outs,” says Russell.

Beginning at midnight this Sunday, the SFWU is planning rolling strikes across the hospital sector to support its industrial demands. These strikes are set to continue at least to 25 June, with each individual strike taking 55 minutes in every hour – but with the strikers intending to return to their jobs for the residual five minutes in every hour.

“These strikes would have caused a huge amount of disruption at each hospital. We could not guarantee adequate levels of health and safety for patients in hospitals with striking and non-striking staff continuously coming and going and continuously interrupting their work. So, for health and safety reasons we have locked the striking SFWU members out for the period of their rolling strikes.”

“It will ask a lot for our other staff to cover the gaps left by the strikes, but we are confident we can manage,” says Mr Russell.

Spotless has contingency plans in place at each of its hospital sites with non-striking staff adjusting shifts, and in some cases, being shifted about sites to cover the gaps.

ENDS

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