Overtime Ban Not Supported

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31094, 24 June 1966, Page 12

Overtime Ban Not Supported

The central committee of the Mental Health Group of the Public Service Association would not support the action proposed by male nurses at Oakley Psychiatric Hospital, Auckland, said the secretary of the committee (Mr A. H. Strong) in Christchurch yesterday.

An emergency meeting of tiie central committee In Christchurch yesterday afternoon decided that the move by the Oakley sub-group was not in the interests of the welfare of patients. It also decided that the intention of male nurses at Oakley to refuse to work increased and compulsory hours of overtime, was unethical in the nursing profession. The new hours of overtime

are scheduled to begin on July 1. After the meeting in Christchurch, Mr Strong released a statement on behalf of the committee. “For more than 20 years the mental health group has been negotiating for an eighthour day, 40-hour week. This has been conceded,” the statement said. “The shifts have been implemented on an eight-hour basis, but because of the shortage of staff, they have of necessity to be extended, to give the nursing service required. “Overtime throughout the Public Service is compulsory as set out in the Public Service Regulations, 1964. Regulation 29 (2) states: ‘Every employee who is called upon to work overtime shall attend during such additional hours of duty as may be specified by his controlling officer. Except in the case of emergency or where public safety is involved, the commission or

permanent head may excuse any officer from working overtime.

“The secretary of the Oakley sub-group should be well aware of this regulation. In any case, this move has been taken without reference to the national executive of the association or the central committee of the group. “Unless there are other factors that have not been made available to us, such unilateral action cannot be countenanced. “The new shifts have been instituted in some of the other hospitals, inducting Sunnyside and Templeton. Though there have been certain anomalies, and there may be more, these are being adjusted by proper negotiations between the parties concerned.”

The statement said that if the figures quoted by the spokesman for the male nurses at Oakley Hospital (Mr R. J. Cope) in yesterday’s issue of “ The Press” were correct, it appeared that thnew shifts were not being worked to the best advantage.

“He should have been negotiating, through the assoAssociation and the central committee, for improvements, before rushing into print,” said the staement.

“The average weekly overtime is nowhere near Mr Cope’s figure at Sunnyside Hospital where the new hours are operating and where there is a greater staff shortage than at Oakley Hospital.” The statement said that there were still points of conciliation to be completed. “The Oakley sub-group’s destructive proposals do a great disservice to the majority of mental hospital employees, who under any system of hours and any difficulties which may arise, are a credit to the nursing profession,” the statement said.

“The infringement of the Public Service Regulations and any action which may follow, is the responsibility of the Oakley sub-group, unless the members concerned can persuade the association that their action is warranted.”