Court staff take day-long strike

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Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:23a.m.

Court staff have taken the entire day off today, the most substantial move since industrial action began over pay dispute

Court staff have taken the entire day off today, the most substantial move since industrial action began over pay dispute

Ministry of Justice staff around the country walked off the job this morning in the most substantial move since industrial action began over a pay dispute.

The union members, who belong to the Public Service Association, left their work stations at 10am and will stay out for the rest of the day.

"Our members will not accept being paid less than rest of the public service for running something as essential as our justice system," PSA national secretary Richard Wagstaff said.

"Nor will we continue to accept the ministry's unjust pay system that's responsible for their underpayment."

Today's industrial action is the fifth for the staff since stalled pay talks last month, but the previous strikes had been for only one or two hours.

"Striking for a day is an escalation of their action and shows how determined the PSA members are to have a fair pay system and to bridge their pay gap with the rest of the public service," Mr Wagstaff said.

The workers were paid 6.3 percent below the pay median for the public service, with 1200 court registry officers paid 9.25 percent below the public service median, he said.

 The Justice Ministry said it remained committed to resolving industrial action in a way that was affordable and fair.

"We have made a realistic offer to increase staff pay based on performance, rather than time in the job or across the board increases not related to performance," ministry general manager higher courts Andrew Hampton said.

"The bottom line is that the ministry cannot afford the current PSA claim. The ministry has made the best offer it can in the current environment, and continues to favour a pay system that rewards performance, not time in the job."

Mr Hampton said the ministry was working hard to minimise the disruption to court users due to the industrial action, but some impact was inevitable.

"We apologise for the inconvenience and appreciate court users' patience and understanding while this is resolved.

"The ministry believes the best way to make progress is to get back around the table, and invites the PSA to do so. The ministry would expect industrial action to cease for that to happen," Mr Hampton said.

NZPA

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Comments

16 Nov 2009 01:45p.m.

Hutt_Guy wrote:

National party strikes again, my sister works in a low paid government job sorting mail they have hundreds of employees.

The government slashes their hours from 8 hours a day to 5 because they said they couldnt afford the wage bill. they were also told that there was limited work, but currently they are processing twice as much work as they normally did.

They gauranteed that loss of hours was because of the recession and the fact that their wage bill was out of control, but then datamail hired dozens of new employees.

Not only were they told that their hours were to be cut but they were told by government that there would be an indefinite wage freeze. (only applies to low paid workers, not management).

National has been lieing to the people since it first got into power.. nothing new in that though its the National party as they always are... full of it.