Tony Ryall’s reaction to the rejection of the Government’s offer on the “sleepover case” are at best unfortunate and at worst inflammatory. He said that :
“Because of a legal technicality they are now wanting to be paid the minimum wage for sleeping….. and retrospectively at that.”
Three Courts have determined that ”sleepovers” are work and entitled to be paid at minimum wage, but apparently Tony Ryall knows better.
He carried on his diatribe by lecturing the unions and the workers about the country borrowing $300 million a week, telling them their claims are unaffordable.
John Ryall, National Secretary of the Service & Food Workers Union describes the “unaffordable” work of these caregivers in this piece in the Dominion Post yesterday.
Overnight, when most New Zealanders are asleep in the comfort of their own homes, these workers provide critical support to members of our communities with intellectual disabilities and mental health issues who live in residential houses. For the staff this may include dealing with challenging behaviour, seizures or vomiting. If they manage to get some sleep, they are on call. It’s demanding, challenging and exhausting work, but our members do it because they care. Their reward is making a difference in the lives of the people they support.
Yet those same disability support workers who are members of the Service and Food Workers Union and PSA receive $34 a sleepover shift of up to nine hours. That’s $3.77 an hour.
The government has offered to pay the minimum wage, but not until 2015. They’ve offered 25% of the backpay, with Disability Support providers having to find half of the money.
Members of both unions have overwhelmingly rejected the offer and endorsed a union proposal under which workers would receive the minimum wage in six months and half the back pay owed. The unions are being reasonable. The government is not.
Meanwhile, the Attorney-General has joined IHC in continuing to fight the case in the Court of Appeal.
They’re only putting off the inevitable, but it says a lot about this government’s priorities.
That dreadful columnist in the Herald (Rag) on Sunday, Kerre Woodham also espoused the view that the country really could not afford to pay this money.
Maybe she would trade places .. I think not.
The sad thing is on this one is that the Govt. knows it will lose on appeal and yet is still fighting the case.
Mind you, you can’t expect Tony Ryall, who has probably never had to say, comfort a severely autistic kid at 4 a.m. who is freaking out and screaming their head off after shitting themselves, to have any idea what caregiving of this nature involves.
Maybe he would like to take his ‘paid a wage for sleeping’ comment to lateshift Firefighters, Police and Nursing staff and see how far that gets him.
“This Government has given out more than $4 billion in tax cuts to the wealthy, $1.2b to those who made risky investments in South Canterbury Finance, $43 million for loans to Mediaworks to save their radio network $36m payment to America’s Cup, and Hobbit tax credits to Warner Bros of an extra $50m to $60m.” Dom. Post
The National Government found the money for movies and they found money for give to the well off, but they can’t seem to find the money to pay workers assisting those most at risk in our community?
Is that a whiff of moral corruptness I can smell? It certainly leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.
Well said Mel. Hard to argue.
I have a disabled (mentally and physically) brother-in-law. I have nursed my own mother at home while she was dying when I was 22 years old, and moved to Christchurch with my partner when the mother-in-law was dying. We took leave from work, unpaid.
When doing this kind of thing you are on 24 hour alert. We were doing this for those we loved. The people Mr Ryall speaks of so disparagingly do thankless work in a very caring and compassionate way for bugger-all. If they slept through an incident, Mr Ryall and the media and Ms Woodham would be the first to claim it was “outrageous” a “travesty” “what happened to helping fellow humans because it is the right thing to do?” they would cry.
Anyone, I mean anyone who thinks this is about being paid to sleep, needs to spend 24 hours,, or a week in this situation caring for someone they don’t love and have no rleationship to other than as poorly paid carer.
I have a friend who has a full time job and provides respite care for two families with severely disabled sons. She is on 24 hour alert when she has them, alert to every sound and sign. She receives $$ I dont know how much but its not much for having the boys from Friday night to Sunday 4pm. They suffer seizures, they vomit, they need feeding, toileting and so on. So let’s pay her for “sleeping”, it’s saving us heaps on the mental and physical health of the parents who need the break.
What kind of compassionless society have we become????
Air New Zealand pilots take turns sleeping on the 9 hour overnight flight to LA.
( they have their own bed on the flight deck)
Will the minister tell them they are on a ’sleepover’
Spot on Mel its the same old same Tory attitude if its a worker, who gives a shit if its one of their mates, media works, South Canterbury Finance,foreign investors, private schools, its here comes the money.
When will NZ wake up? Nationals brighter future was for their mates only voters didnt know about the small print.
Shouldn’t even be up for negotiation. The law says that they get paid minimum wage or better and the government should not be allowed to break the law.
Someone remind me when this case first started and a decision originally given that Carers where entitled to pay…. Ummmmm thats right it was in 2007 when the Labour government was in office…. Convenient how things are forgotten by members of the Labour party
@Jeff : is that the best you can do in defence of your government? Three Courts have decided ; the government funds disability support ; they need to pay up; the unions are being reasonable. and so would Labour be. Tony Ryall isn’t.
Way of the world these days, a consultant paid $400+ P/h comes in to tell the boss/unions that minimum wage is too much for the staff.
@Darrien You miss my point. Labour had the oppotunity to be”fair” as you put it, when you were in power…. (bet that seems like such a long time ago now)…. but decided to fight the ruling through the courts. It is only now through an attempt to score political points that your collective voices have changed. Pity Labour is unlikely to get the oppotunity to show how reasonable they would be for some time yet!
@Jeff wrong : There was no ruling until 2007 in the Employment Relations Authority. IHC challenged it and took it to the Employment Court. The government under Labour never joined IHC in challenging the decision, but this government has in both the Court of Appeal and now the Supreme Court.
Thanks for clarifying that, but surely if Labour had of been so keen to see the matter settled, you could have simply said to IHC, “here is the extra funding you require to pay the carers”. You seem to have ignored the fact that the reason why IHC challenged the ruling was that they did not have the funding to meet the additional costs. As an aside, I agree that the matter should be settled and that the workers do deserve payment, however, to lay the problem totally at the feet of Tony Ryall is somewhat disengenious.