“Senior Doctors Thank Outgoing Labour Minister For Fairer Industrial Law”
“Senior doctors are thankful to outgoing Minister of Labour, Margaret Wilson, for providing fairer industrial law,” said
Mr Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, today.
“The Employment Relations Act has proved to be much fairer and balanced industrial law than the former ‘dog-eat-dog’ and
adversarial legislation that it replaced.”
“Ms Wilson’s appreciation of the importance of fairness in industrial relations is also evident in much of her proposed
fine-tuning amendments to the Act currently before Parliament.”
“While the senior doctors’ national collective agreement negotiations with district health boards currently face major
difficulties, at least we were able to get to the negotiating table and have made some useful progress. Before the
Employment Relations Act we could not even get to the table.”
“We will remember Ms Wilson for introducing industrial law that allows us to attempt to negotiate national agreements
that are better placed to address the serious recruitment and retention problems currently faced by our health system,”
concluded Mr Powell.