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Mike Hosking: Govt right not to offer nurses any more money

Author
Mike Hosking,
Publish Date
Wed, 20 Jun 2018, 11:33AM
A top level nurse is now being offer 16 percent over three years. Photo \ Getty Images
A top level nurse is now being offer 16 percent over three years. Photo \ Getty Images

Mike Hosking: Govt right not to offer nurses any more money

Author
Mike Hosking,
Publish Date
Wed, 20 Jun 2018, 11:33AM

There is no more money on the table for the nurses. And I congratulate Grant Robertson and David Clark for saying so.

A top level nurse is now being offer 16 percent over three years.

And they say if you want to shuffle it about, you want to change it about, you want to do it differently no problem at all.

But the envelope is the same. There's half a billion on the table.

I wonder in the background, and good on them for standing their ground I take it they're not going to back down on this, whether the Labour Party are quietly seething because the unions have badly let them down.

Labour, who are of course besties with the unions, thought "let's hand out some good, solid, happy days pay rises." And they thought nine percent was as good as the nurses could ever have dreamed.

So in other words what the Labour Party wanted was some good solid pay rises, and to say "look, we're good to the worker, we're good to the unions and the workforce is getting a fair deal under this government."

Or a fair suck of the Sauvignon blanc.

But they went out with their nine percent and the nurses went "Nope."

READ MORE: Mike Hosking: Nurses need to be realistic in pay dispute

Now suddenly the government is going "hang on, that wasn't part of the deal."

And they don't know what to do now. They're sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place.

But now, they've got to play hardball.

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