Photo: RNZ/Ruth Hill
Getting the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) to decide pay and conditions for senior doctors may be the circuit-breaker needed to end the impasse, according to one legal expert.
In a move that is unprecedented for the public sector, Health NZ is applying to the ERA to "fix" the terms of its contract with the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists.
The union has panned the move as "unwarranted" and likely to make its 5500 members even angrier, as they prepare to walk off the job for 48 hours next week.
Employment law specialist Simon Schofield, who teaches at Auckland University, said it may give both sides a way out if all other options were exhausted.
"Genuinely, I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing that Health NZ is making this application because it signals an end - or a possible end - to this dispute.
"And whether it's in favour of the doctors, or in favour of Health NZ, that's less of a worry to the public."
It was very rare for the ERA to be called on to "fix" terms in this way, and unprecedented for it to happen in the public sector, he said.
The only two cases in which the ERA had decided terms were Jack's Hardware & Timber, involving two South Island Mitre 10 stores, and the environmental management services company Nelmac.
In the case of Jack's Hardware, the ERA ultimately fixed a pay rate that was comparable to what the opposition (Bunnings) was paying its workers.
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