Media Release

13 December 2010

Home of Compassion called to account

Whanganui's Aubert Home of Compassion is the subject of a special sitting of the Employment Relations Authority in Whanganui on Wednesday (December 15). At this sitting the Service and Food Workers' Union and the New Zealand Nurses Organisation will seek to persuade the Authority to settle a two-year-old pay dispute with the rest-home.

Union spokesperson Sam Jones says staff at the Home of Compassion have been shut out of a national funding increase for the past two years.

"Last year the Home of Compassion failed to pass on a five percent addition in government funding. This year it failed to pass on a further 1.73 percent. No other residential care operator we deal with has taken such an approach. All we want is justice and a fair share."

"The Home of Compassion facility is said to be following the 'mission of Jesus in the spirit of Suzanne Aubert' and purports to operate on a set of values including 'to be just and act with integrity', but from our point of view, the Board's decision to withhold district health board funding intended for staff wages two years in a row is anything but 'just' and seems to us to lack any 'integrity'", Jones says.

"That money would make a real difference to the lives of the care staff who give so much to the residents.

"Last Easter staff stood on picket lines and received wonderful community support. But their employer was not listening. Now it's nearly Christmas and it's time Aubert Home of Compassion opened its ears and its bankbook."

The hearing is not open to the media

ENDS

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