APEX Union have announced their members in Whangarei, Taranaki, Hawke’s Bay, Wellington, and the South Island will take industrial action (strike) on Tuesday 22, Wednesday 23 and Thursday 24 April, 2025.
The strike is a full withdrawal of labour, which means APEX Union members who work in the laboratory, collection centres, and logistics and support staff (in some regions), will strike on these days.
Awanui staff are progressing contingency planning for how we will operate across communities and hospitals where we provide services.
- Most of our services across the South Island will be closed for the period of the strike, with no routine services available.
- All regions will have life preserving services for the strike period where needed.
Our teams are working closely with Health NZ to manage the impacts to hospital services and the wider health sector. Priority will be ensuring those who are seriously ill still receive the critical, life preserving services they need.
Below are details of changes to services on strike days:
Collection centres open
- Northfield, Christchurch – 0700 – 1200 hrs
- Ashburton – 0830 – 1130 hrs
- All other collection centres will be closed
- Please note that all collection centres are closed on Friday 18 April and Monday 21 April for the Easter public holidays.
Courier collections
- No routine courier pick-ups available in all areas
- Drop boxes will NOT be cleared on strike days
- To request a critically urgent courier pick-up please call 03 359 0900 (Christchurch city only, NOT available for rural area)
- Most courier pick-ups for rural practices have been cancelled for these dates. Individual notifications have been issued, contact our call centre for specific information if required.
- Couriers will be operating on a reduced service to collect samples for histology from Specialist Centres, expect delays.
Laboratory services
- Only samples for critically urgent testing will be processed
- Clinical details must be present on all requests
- Testing will be triaged, and non-critical samples may be declined
- Routine samples should NOT be collected during the period of industrial action.
- Microbiology – DO NOT collect and save samples, they will not be suitable for testing the following week.
- Histology: Please restrict requests. Turnaround times will be affected by this Industrial Action.
- Phlebotomy Services: On-call collections unavailable. Home visits strictly limited to critical care collections – requests will be triaged based on clinical need
- Do NOT divert work to Canterbury Health Laboratories (CHL) which would otherwise have been referred to Awanui Labs.
Private Hospitals
- Hospital ward rounds will be reduced. A single ward round will be carried out by Awanui staff at 9.00am only.
- Specimens collected by hospital staff at other times will be transported by our logistics team and will need to be taken to a central collection point. We will advise in advance the of the location and pick-up times.
- The last courier for specimen pick-up from your facility will be between 5pm and 6pm. You will be advised in advance of the pick-up time.
- Un-booked frozen sections – please call the laboratory as usual to arrange an urgent courier pick up.
Awanui respects the right of union members within our organisation to strike, and we understand these periods in the business can create a challenging environment.
We thank you once again for your continued understanding and support during this time.