Source: Radio New Zealand
Health NZ said on Friday that everyone had been paid overnight but one worker said some people still had problems with their pay. RNZ / Peter de Graaf
There is another snag for some of the thousands of health workers who weren’t paid this week.
Now some have been underpaid after being paid late, according to one health worker.
Health New Zealand had been scrambling to pay about 5,500 staff in Waikato who didn’t get their money on time.
One Waikato Hospital worker said on Thursday she had to borrow money to leave the car park after work and had to tell her landlord she couldn’t pay rent.
Health NZ said on Friday that everyone had been paid overnight.
But the worker said some people still had problems with their pay.
Health NZ then confirmed there was a new issue.
“We are working hard to rectify an issue which cause a small number of staff that did not receive the correct pay yesterday,” it said.
“While we are pleased we were able to activate payments for most of the 5,500 affected staff yesterday, we absolute recognise the distress this has caused the few who did not receive the right payment.”
The spokesperson said its payroll teams were contacting those people directly to apologise.
They were also being offered hardship assistance, it said.
“We are further investigating the specific causes of the issue, but our priority it is to ensure all staff get paid the right amount today,” Health NZ said.
“We are committed to ensuring all Waikato staff get paid correctly and on time going forward.”
Helen, the worker from Waikato Hospital, was paid the correct amount but said others had not.
“A lot of them are very frustrated and annoyed that it’s happened,” she said.
“There were a few number of staff that either got half pay or were quite short in their pay due to yet another glitch, but they haven’t gone into specifics what that glitch was.”
She said she personally knew of two people who were significantly underpaid.
“It seems that some people’s long service leave, which we’re entitled to after five years, if it was taken in sort of the last two months it was refunded back to Health New Zealand,” Helen said.
“And so the amount that was paid for that long service leave is actually deducted from people’s pay as well as sick leave balances were deducted from pay and some public holidays were deducted from pay as well.”
The Public Service Association, after the initial payment failure, called for an urgent review.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
