Christchurch scientists and forensic staff will walk off the job on Tuesday as part of a nationwide strike over their employer’s plan to scrap step-based pay.

Workers at the New Zealand Institute of Public Health and Forensic Science site in Ilam will strike from 8am to 12pm, joining more than 400 colleagues at sites in Auckland and Wellington.

A picket line rally will be held at 27 Creyke Road from 11am to 12pm.

The dispute centres on the institute’s push to replace its current step-based pay system with one based entirely on performance.

Public Service Association National Secretary Fleur Fitzsimons said the model does not work.

“Performance pay doesn’t make for more effective workers, and it doesn’t accurately reflect performance,” she said. “It can introduce unconscious bias and contribute to gender and ethnic pay gaps.”

Fitzsimons said removing performance pay was a hard won breakthrough for the workforce.

“They do not want to go back to a blunt instrument that doesn’t belong in public science or public services.”

Staff taking part include those who research public health issues that inform Government decisions, test wastewater for drugs, track infectious diseases, help ensure food and water are safe, and carry out crime scene forensic work for police.

The union says the last time the organisation used performance based pay, its workers were among the lowest paid in the science sector, with some failing to reach the midpoint of their pay band after 10 to 15 years of service.

The institute is also offering a zero percent cost of living increase. The union says that means three quarters of its lowest paid workers, those earning between $60,000 and $100,000, would get no guaranteed pay rise in the coming year.

“In the middle of a cost of living crisis, these workers are being asked to go backwards while doing essential work for the entire nation,” Fitzsimons said.

She described the situation as the latest episode in what she called a rolling disaster in the Government’s science sector reforms.

“After months of uncertainty and botched changes, the Government’s new institute wants to make its pay system less equitable without even increasing wages to keep up with the cost of living. No wonder so many skilled science workers are giving up on New Zealand altogether and moving overseas.”

The union is calling on the institute to return to bargaining with an improved offer, and for the Government to properly fund the sector.

The institute became a Public Research Organisation on 1 July last year, replacing the former Institute of Environmental Science and Research as part of the Government’s science reforms.