Nurses' salaries 'on track'

2008-01-15 21:04

Cape Town - The Health Department says it is making progress towards implementing the Occupational Specific Dispensation (OSD) agreement for nurses, signed last year by all trade unions in the Public Health and Social Development Sectoral Bargaining Council.

"All 100 000 nurses employed by government are expected to benefit from the implementation of the OSD before March 31 (this year)," it said in a statement on Tuesday.

The department urged all parties to the agreement to use the established bargaining council to deal with any issues relating to the implementation of the OSD.

Its statement follows one issued by the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa) on Monday, in which the union said it was angry about employers failing to implement new salary structures for nurses.

The Health Department on Tuesday said that in terms of the OSD agreement, all parties had agreed there would be two phases to the salary adjustments.

"Firstly, it is the minimum adjustment in line with the OSD and secondly, it is the recalculation and progression based on recognition of relevant experience.

"As part of phase one, entry level salaries for Staff Nurses are being increased by 20%, while entry level salaries for Nursing Assistants and Professional Nurses in general nursing have both been increased by 24%."

Phase two of the salary adjustments would be based on the number of years of relevant experience of nurses in the various categories.

"Both these OSD salary adjustments represent an increase which is over and above the 7.5% general salary adjustment reached following negotiations at the end of the public service strike in June last year.

"More importantly, these increases will be effected retrospectively from July 1 2007."

At least two provincial Health Departments, Limpopo and Northern Cape, had completed implementation of the OSD agreement.

- SAPA