24 January 2012

Radius rest home workers to vote on strike action

Rest home workers employed by the Radius group will attend stopwork meetings tomorrow to vote on strike action.

Meetings will take place in Dunedin, Christchurch, New Plymouth, Hawkes Bay, Hamilton, Auckland and Northland.

The meetings follow six months of negotiations with Radius over a staff claim that pay rates at the chain have fallen behind industry standards.

Around 900 rest home workers employed by Radius are members of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation and the Service and Food Workers Union Ngā Ringa Tota.

Joint union spokesperson Chrissy Darth said Radius had failed to ‘pass on’ District Health Board funding two years in a row, leaving care assistants and other health professionals out of pocket.

“In 2009 and in 2010 Radius failed to pass on taxpayer funding to the staff,” she said.

“Staff are not even asking the boss to put his own money on the table. The money we are seeking has already been paid to Radius by the District Health Boards as long ago as 2009. No other sector employer has been so out of step with its staff for so long.”

Chrissy Darth said repeated attempts at mediation and bargaining had failed to convince Radius to see sense, leaving staff with no other option but to consider strike action.

“In December Radius refused to attend scheduled bargaining, leaving staff with no choice but to consider action in the New Year,” she said.

Radius pay rates begin at the minimum wage of $13 an hour. Unlike other large rest home chains, Radius is privately owned with CEO Brien Cree as the majority shareholder.

“CEO Brien Cree promotes his business as being about ‘good old fashioned Kiwi values’,” said Chrissy Darth. “Since when does holding onto taxpayer funding count as a Kiwi value?”

ENDS

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