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Speaker 1: Medical labs. Scientists and technicians are going on strike. They'll

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Speaker 1: be rolling strikes at Awanui path Lab and med labs.

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Speaker 1: This is all over the country for the week beginning

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Speaker 1: March twenty second. The union says one hundred and twenty

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Speaker 1: three thousand fewer patient tests will be done in that

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Speaker 1: week because of the strikes. The president is Debra Pale.

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Speaker 1: Good evening, Deborah, good evening.

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Speaker 2: Run I'm the national secretary, by the way, not the president.

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Speaker 2: They did not take that role, forgive me.

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Speaker 1: And for APEX. I should clarify too. So, Debra, what

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Speaker 1: exactly do these technicians and scientists do?

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Speaker 2: Okay, Well, the public probably know them best from COVID.

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Speaker 2: They really saved us during that period. They were the

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Speaker 2: ones who did all of the PCR testing. If you remember,

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Speaker 2: we all had things being stuck up our noses and

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Speaker 2: they were the ones who said, yep, let's COVID or

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Speaker 2: no it's not. But they do way more than that.

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Speaker 2: They diagnose infections, you know what bugs or bacteria you've

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Speaker 2: got in your system. They diagnosed problems with your red

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Speaker 2: blood cells, whether you've got keemia or not, whether you've

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Speaker 2: got anemia. They diagnose cancer through histology so they look

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Speaker 2: at bits of lumps and things they really don't want

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Speaker 2: and say, yeah, that's cancer or no, never.

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Speaker 1: Mind important stuff. Oh yeah, and absolutely there's eight hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty of them and they're going on strike. The

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Speaker 1: rolling strikes. One hundred and twenty three thousand patient tests

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Speaker 1: will be impacted. Will they be tests like the ones

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Speaker 1: you describe, some pretty important ones where you'd want to know.

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Speaker 2: They may well be. If someone needs a test immediately

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Speaker 2: to keep them alive, putting it bluntly, then they will

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Speaker 2: be done. So that sort of stuff as cases. But yes,

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Speaker 2: other tests will be delayed. So you know your cancer

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Speaker 2: diagnosis for hostology, it will be delayed. It will be done,

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Speaker 2: it just won't be done as timely as the guys

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Speaker 2: normally do.

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Speaker 1: So to photo or employees, the same types of workers,

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Speaker 1: laboratory scientists, technicians. And there's a thirty percent thirty percent

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Speaker 1: pay gap.

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Speaker 2: Yes there is. You want to close the culmination of it, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I want to close it. It's a culmination of a

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Speaker 2: number of things. There's pay equity which went through to

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Speaker 2: the fat or a lab workers that did not go

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Speaker 2: through the private corporates did not pay a pay equity

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Speaker 2: uplift and there is also a slow decline and insufficient

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Speaker 2: cost of living type adjustments having been made in the

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Speaker 2: private sector. So yeah, now there's a thirty percent gap

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Speaker 2: and we want it corrected.

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Speaker 1: So who owns a who owns the forgive me? Who

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Speaker 1: owns the labs?

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Speaker 2: Well, there's three different labs. The biggest one is Awanui

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Speaker 2: that's owned by a Canadian teacher's superannuation fund I think

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Speaker 2: about forty eight percent. There is an EWE interest in

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Speaker 2: that at about three point seven percent, and there is

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Speaker 2: also the New Zealand Superfund which owns it. So some

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Speaker 2: are owned offshore, some are owned here in New Zealand.

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Speaker 2: None of them are health providers, of course. They are

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Speaker 2: simply shareholders and they're looking for a dividend. They're looking

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Speaker 2: for profits to be paid out. So a anouis a

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Speaker 2: few years ago, just after COVID paid out forty four

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Speaker 2: million dollars in profit out to its shareholders. That money

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Speaker 2: largely came from the public purse. That's the private system,

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Speaker 2: isn't it. Here we are today saying hang on a

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Speaker 2: seat here, but your workers aren't being paid enough in

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Speaker 2: their crying poor. So we've got a bit of a problem.

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Speaker 1: Talk to APEX national secretary.

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Speaker 2: For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive. Listen live to

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