NZNO's pay campaign gains momentum: members have resoundingly endorsed NZNO's campaign to ensure fair pay for nurses close the gender pay gap. But there is still plenty of work to do to ensure pay equity becomes a reality.(industrial focus)

AROUND of stop work meetings at all district health boards (DHB) throughout the country has responded with a loud "yes" to NZNO's proposal to focus attention on the systematic underpayment of (mostly female) health workers and to take action to close the gender pay gap.

Attended by almost a third of NZNO's DHB-based members, the turn out for the meetings was encouraging. There was overwhelming endorsement of a national pay strategy aimed at achieving pay for nurses that is fair in relation to other health professionals, public sector workers (like teachers and police) and overseas nurses.

The meetings were themselves a sign of the times. They were the first national stop work meetings held by NZNO since 1991 and the first time since then that NZNO members have voted on a nationwide approach to improve wages and conditions. We can now build a national strategy on the solid base of our four regional DHB …