Holidays Act remediation payments update

Te Whatu Ora today issued a Holidays Act remediation payments update.

As of today, more than 83,000 current employees, representing nearly 93% of the current workforce have been paid Holiday Act remediation payments for their current role.

Around 2,500 Bay of Plenty employees today received payments of $10.9 million. That now brings the total remediation payment to current employees to more than $657 million.

Remediation work continues for the remaining payrolls: Lakes, MidCentral, and Whanganui.

Payments to former employees began in October 2025, with $4.7 million paid to to over 1,000 former staff in Taranaki.

More than 10,000 former Auckland Metro employees were paid over $39 million today.

Payments are expected to be made to former employees of Tairāwhiti and Southern next month, subject to final audits and assurance checks.

Corrections

We are currently running ratification meetings with Corrections, who went on strike at the end of October. These meetings will run for a week, with voting on the  latest offer closing on Saturday 8^th December. Although the pay component is still disappointing, Corrections obviously were affected by the strike action held on 23 October and have moved on a whole load of other claims. 

This is the first offer we have had that is significantly improved over their opening negotiation stance, though the pay component remains low because of government restrictions, we do see improvements across the whole of our claims otherwise.

Health Centre Manager negotiations in Corrections continue. We have agreed in principle to bring all NZNO members into a new collective agreement and move towards addressing the on-call system to make it safe. The sticking point is how the pay scale is formatted, which might seem a small point, but prevents all managers from being on a single scale and the Corrections position refuses to acknowledge the added responsibilities of those on the current lower paying scale. We have proposed no changes to the values paid on the scale, but have merged the two scales to ensure all HCMs are paid the same and have similar progression criteria.

Access

Access made another offer to settle the negotiations last time we met. This is the employer whose advocate announced that being the lowest paying employer in the sector “is a position we’re very comfortable with”. Their pay offer although improved from the first one was still calculated to leave their staff as the lowest paid nurses in the sector. The bargaining team have rejected this outright and made a counterproposal that remains open until 5 December. 

If this is not accepted by the employer, or at least improvements on pay are not met, then we will be discussing with members the options for industrial action. Access has an annualised turn-over rate of close to 30% and the main reason for leaving is high workloads and low pay, meaning that if they don’t address the situation urgently, they may not be able to meet their contractual obligations in some areas. Their negotiating team refuses to accept this assertion and continues to try to undermine the collective agreement and try to slip clawbacks into negotiations by way of late claims.

NZ Blood Service 

NZ Blood Service to allow for bereavement leave. We’re looking forward to hearing their response to our suggestions to progress negotiations then.

Plunket 

Plunket have now responded to four out of our six Pay Equity claims. Our original September claim was rejected as they claimed it didn’t meet the new merit criteria. We raised six separate claims for each job title and four of these have so far been accepted. However, Plunket are trying to impose ‘strategic pay’ on their nursing staff, which is a system largely discredited as disadvantaging workers and moved away from by the public service and most universities. We will meet with Plunket to give our responses once they have acknowledged all of the claims made.

MetLife Care  

We are pleased to inform you that the collective agreement has been ratified. Thank you to everyone who participated by coming to meetings and responding to our emails. 

Thank you to our amazing bargaining team: 

Mwape Chalabesa, Karori 

Angela Miller, Merivale 

Bupa 

We are pleased to inform you that the collective agreement has been ratified. Thank you to everyone who got involved, and a special thank you to our bargaining team:  

Sushil Devkota - Stokeswood  
Jodi Thomson - Longwood 
John Hore - Ascot  
Lindsay Warren - Te Whānau  
Val Fafita - Parklands 
Maree Ross - Parkstone  

The Senior Nurse agreement is also now ratified. Thank you to everyone for your involvement, and a special thank you to Nisha Sakaria for your thoughtful assistance throughout this process. Also, Kim Black, congratulations on your award, well done.  

Radius  

We have an offer of settlement from the company. We will be in touch very soon with an outline of the offer and balloting information. Our goal is to ratify ahead of 8 December.  

Summerset bargaining update 

After meetings on13 and 14 November, bargaining has stalled. We’re now visiting sites to explain the issues and gather your views. 

Summerset’s offer is below the industry standard and includes reductions to weekend allowances.  

Our bargaining team have been very clear that this is unacceptable to members. We will be gathering your feedback to share with the company in coming weeks.

Last week we had a response from Plunket to the re-raised claim for registered nurses. This was the second time we raised the claim under the new legislation, having raised a broader claim with the coverage being a combined claim covering all the Plunket roles. Plunket rejected that claim asserting that not all the roles covered did the same of significantly similar work.

We subsequently separated out the claim into six claims covering the various clinical role holders work. We are really pleased to report that last week we received a response from Plunket that advised they accepted the claim had merit and would like to meet to discuss the next steps in progressing the claim.

We have received similar responses to five of the six claims raised. We will need to discuss the process that Plunket has suggested we use to progress to the next steps. This is important in terms of how we will approach all of our claims. This is good news though as being the first and only union thus far to have raised claims under the new legislation we are trailblazing.

In terms of Hospice, they are taking a different approach. Following on from us raising the “new” claim on September 8, having acknowledged receipt of the claim, Hospices have made an appeal to the Minister to have that claim fast tracked on the basis that they believe the claim meets the merit threshold and due to the information already gathered through the previous process there is evidence of gender based undervaluation already established.

We are told that this position is being “considered” and that Hospices are waiting to hear back on the matter. Otherwise we will most likely proceed through the next steps as set out which will mean meeting to agree how the work will be “re-assessed” and the choice of comparators and so on.

In both cases it would seem that it was not a completely wasted effort having done the interviews and gathered the data and information on these to groups of nurses as we will be able to use that information to inform the new process.

This provides a little light at the end of the tunnel. We will still be advocating for the pay equity legislation to be repealed and improved and ensure that there is funding available to pay the level of pay that should be made across the health sector, notwithstanding the Te Whatu Ora pay equity settlements are overdue a review and we suspect their rates have fallen behind again too.

Across Aotearoa, hundreds of thousands of women are, in effect, working for free. The NZCTU’s 2025 Work for Free campaign calendar exposes what too many families already know: pay inequity is not an accident—it is the outcome of systems that undervalue women’s labour and leadership, particularly that of Māori and Pacific wāhine.

This is not just a wage issue. Pay equity is a justice issue. It is about dismantling the structures—colonial and patriarchal—that have normalised the devaluation of women’s work. When women’s labour is underpaid or unpaid, it signals whose contributions society respects and whose it chooses to overlook. The impact is felt in bank accounts and in wairua—in confidence, dignity, and the ability to plan for the future.

Aotearoa’s Pay Gap: A Mirror of Structural Misogyny

Each year, Work for Free dates mark the point at which women and many ethnic communities effectively stop being paid compared to Pākehā men. The result is weeks of income stripped from households nationwide. Sitting at the sharp end of this inequity are Māori and Pacific women, though the harm extends to all women. This is a pattern, not an anomaly.

In feminised sectors—care work, kaiawhina, nursing, early childhood education—the story is consistent: society benefits from women’s skill and compassion, yet resists valuing that work at parity. This isn’t because the mahi lacks worth. It’s because misogyny—shaped by colonisation—continues to define what counts as “real work,” what counts as “leadership,” and whose expertise is seen as credible.

A Critical Māori Lens: Mana Wahine, Tino Rangatiratanga

From a Māori perspective, pay equity is about mana wahine and tino rangatiratanga—restoring the authority of Māori women to lead, to be heard, and to be valued. The undervaluation of wāhine Māori is inseparable from colonial narratives that displaced our systems of knowledge, our tikanga, and the central role of wāhine in whānau, hapū, and iwi.

A critical Māori lens asks:

• Who benefits when women’s work is discounted?
• Which voices are silenced in decision-making spaces?
• Where are Te Tiriti obligations in our workforce policies and union structures?

Addressing pay inequity is therefore a decolonising act—one that upholds Te Tiriti o Waitangi, centres mātauranga Māori, and ensures wāhine Māori are not just present but powerful in the spaces where decisions are made.

Unionism: A Site of Resistance—And Responsibility

Our unions are vehicles for collective power and protection. Yet union spaces are not immune to misogyny. Tone-policing, gatekeeping, and dismissing wāhine Māori as “too political” or “too outspoken” are all ways patriarchal patterns persist—even in movements meant to deliver justice.

I have seen this firsthand: Māori nurses in union roles—especially those who advocate strongly for equity—are targeted by misogynistic behaviour designed to silence and discredit. Derogatory comments, threats, and orchestrated campaigns attempt to erode not only personal mana but also the wider push for Māori equity in health. That is unacceptable.

A union committed to justice must be committed to mana-enhancing practice: transparent processes, culturally safe pathways to leadership, and protection for wāhine who face backlash for speaking truth. True solidarity means unions confronting misogyny within their own walls, not just outside them.

The Human Cost: Tiaho’s Story

Consider Tiaho Whakamarurangi Tiaho, a caregiver whose dream of building on ancestral Māori land was derailed when Government decisions cut pay equity claims. This is what the pay gap looks like in real life: lost opportunities, deferred aspirations, and intergenerational impacts on whānau. It is never only a pay slip—it is whakapapa, whenua, and the future.

Naming the Pattern, Refusing the Silence

Misogyny today may not wear the same face it did during the suffrage movement, but its presence is clear—in boardrooms, budgets, policies, and everyday interactions. Every offhand remark that diminishes a woman’s expertise, every decision that sidelines her leadership, is another brick in the wall of everyday misogyny.

I will not accept that as “just the way things are.” The gender pay gap is more than a number; it’s evidence that our society still refuses to fully value women’s work, skill, and leadership—especially that of Māori and Pacific women. Not on my watch.

What Justice Looks Like

Fighting for pay equity is about reshaping workplaces and communities so that every woman’s labour is respected and remunerated. Through a critical Māori lens, justice looks like:

• Te Tiriti-led pay equity frameworks that recognise cultural and community labour as real, valuable work.
• Valuing care and kaiawhina roles with pay, conditions, and progression that reflect their skill and impact.
• Culturally safe union structures that protect wāhine Māori leaders and create clear pathways for leadership.
• Accountability for misogynistic behaviour—from policy to practice—so wāhine are not punished for speaking up.
• Investment in Māori-led solutions, embedding mātauranga Māori and whānau-centred models in workforce design.

Reclaiming Power—In Homes, Workplaces, and Movements

We must take back our power by changing what’s normal in our homes and workplaces. That starts with how we raise our sons and how we engage our bosses—ensuring the men in our lives respect us as equals in word and deed.

We must also uplift women at every level—on wards, in clinics, in unions, and in governance—because wāhine can lead and do lead. This is why Te Poari invests in empowering wāhine Māori members. At every opportunity, we stand our women alongside the legacies of Dame Whina Cooper and Dame Tariana Turia—leaders who planted seeds of courage, service, and change for future generations of women, whānau, and communities.

The Commitment

Systemic misogyny is not a relic; it is current, persistent, and repairable—if we choose the hard work of equity. I am committed to that work: calling out misogyny, advancing pay equity, and ensuring wāhine Māori are valued, protected, and able to lead. He mahi tika tēnei. This is the work of justice.

Pay equity is not the end of the fight—it is the beginning of the future our mothers and daughters deserve

Colleges and sections are central to NZNO’s success and influence and brings together groups of members who are focused on a specific nursing specialty.

So far only less than 20% of members have elected to join a college or section, and we'd like to see you grow that number. NZNO colleges and sections can help you advance your practice through policy and professional development opportunities, and membership at most colleges and sections is open and free to NZNO members.

There’s bound to be one for every member as there are 20 colleges and sections across a range of specialty areas and members can choose to belong to as many as three. Individual membership choices are usually related to clinical specialty and/or study and research interests.

Check out our colleges and sections here. Which one(s) will you join?

College of Emergency Nurses

As a college, CENNZ has been working hard on conference planning, including lining up speakers, confirming the programme, and shaping an engaging and meaningful event for our members. CENNZ Conference Website

Alongside this, we’re completing the final edits of our KSF, which will soon be ready for membership review.

We’re also pleased to have officially published our Māori Health Strategy, a significant milestone in our commitment to equity. With this in place, we’ve begun mapping out our key work priorities for 2026 to ensure we continue to deliver strong, future-focused outcomes for emergency nursing in Aotearoa.

Lauren Miller, CENNZ Chair

Post-Graduate Study Grant for Māori and Pacific Nurses with a Focus or Interest in Diabetes Care

Members don’t need to be members of the college of diabetes to apply. Up to $3500 is available for post graduate study.

The criteria for applying  is as follows:

• Priority 1: Māori and/or Pacific RN applying for a diabetes specific post-graduate paper

• Priority 2: Māori and/or Pacific RN applying for a post-graduate paper not specific to diabetes, but employed to work with people with diabetes

• Priority 3: Any RN employed by a Māori and/or Pacific health provider applying for a diabetes specific post-graduate paper

• Priority 4: Any RN employed by a Māori and/or Pacific health provider applying for a post-graduate paper not specific to diabetes, but employed to work with people with diabetes

More than 45 unions, educators, occupational health and safety experts, academics, and public health organisations, including Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa NZNO, have signed an open letter calling on the Prime Minister to establish an urgent review into regulatory system failures resulting in asbestos-containing products in workplaces, ECEs, and schools.

“Within four months two unrelated products, both containing asbestos, have entered workplaces and education centres, risking dangerous exposure for workers and children to asbestos,” said New Zealand Council of Trade Unions President Sandra Grey.

“There have evidently been huge failures in the regulatory systems designed to protect people. This represents a profound breach of trust.

“Workers and children have potentially been exposed to a known carcinogen that is strictly prohibited under New Zealand law. We need to find out how this was allowed to happen and agree a plan to help prevent this in the future.

“New Zealanders are entitled to full transparency, accountability, and corrective action. We are demanding swift and decisive intervention at a ministerial and system-wide level.

“There must be a broad formal investigation into how the fibre boards and asbestos-containing sand entered New Zealand that looks at border testing, import controls, supplier assurance, and whether government oversight systems are fit for purpose.

“It is critical that all relevant stakeholders are included in this review, ensuring the voice of occupational health professionals, workers, business, and other impacted communities. 

“Asbestos is the most well-known occupational health hazard, and yet asbestos exposure is still killing up to 220 people in New Zealand every year. It is unacceptable,” said Grey.

This year, for the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, UNI Global Union is shining a spotlight on a fast-growing and often overlooked threat: technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV). From 25 November – the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women – until Human Rights Day on 10 December, we are calling on unions worldwide to take action to protect workers from online harassment and cyberbullying. See the campaign tool kit here. 

This week’s landmark report from the World Health Organization, shows that violence against women and girls remains one of the world’s most persistent and neglected human rights crises, with barely any progress in two decades. However, the situation may be even more serious, as the study does not account for the growing danger of digital violence due to limited available research.

What is TFGBV?

Technology-facilitated gender-based violence includes any act of violence or abuse carried out or amplified through digital tools or online platforms, targeting someone because of their gender.

Read more