Public sector nurses and midwives across NSW will go on strike for 24 hours next week, after talks between the NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association (NSWNMA) and the NSW government failed to reach an outcome on wages.
The NSWNMA notified its members a short time ago, confirming a 24-hour strike will go ahead from the start of morning shift on Wednesday, November 13.
NSWNMA General Secretary, Shaye Candish, said the union had been forced to take this action, after no progress on pay had been made during the four-week intensive negotiation period.
“This strike action isn’t taken lightly, but the government has left us no other choice. It cannot continue to underestimate the anger within the nursing and midwifery professions,” said Ms Candish.
“Our members are extremely frustrated and disheartened. They have been holding on for an outcome on better pay, juggling challenging working conditions, trying to manage their bills in a cost-of-living crisis, and now they feel terribly let down.
“Not only is the state government not willing to put any new money on the table to pay nurses and midwives adequately for the work they do, it also doesn’t have a solution to address the interstate pay and gender pay disparities.
“We have some of the lowest paid nurses and midwives in the country, yet we continue to see record activity in our emergency departments and across the public health system. It’s no wonder nurses and midwives are continuing to move interstate or reevaluate their careers.
“Other female-dominated workers such as teachers, early childhood educators and aged care workers are being valued and well remunerated by Labor governments. Yet the NSW government is happy to let the gender pay gap grow in NSW, which is now the highest in a decade.
“Almost 70,000 public sector nurses and midwives across the state are worse off, and they will continue to slip further down the pay and conditions ladder, if this government doesn’t step up and deliver a decent wage increase for its single largest female workforce.”
NSWNMA Assistant General Secretary, Michael Whaites, said despite repeatedly saying that the wages cap had been removed, the government was refusing to put an offer to nurses and midwives that would address the underlying problems.
“This contradicts the government’s claims that they are trying to fix the gender pay gap or that they had any intention of negotiating with us. Instead, they are just offering the same to our workforce as every other public sector worker and failing to take our issues into account,” said Mr Whaites.
“From May to October, we have showed up to Ministry of Health negotiations and participated in good faith. We identified savings to fund our claims, but no formal offer was made on pay, night duty penalties or salary packaging.
“The government says it’s delivering nurse-to-patient ratios and that it can’t provide a decent pay increase too. The government expects that nurses and midwives stay low paid in order to staff the hospitals. The very real risk is that ratios will be no more than a commitment on paper unless they deliver competitive and attractive rates of pay so they can recruit.
“We are calling on the Premier and Treasurer to intervene and direct new money into the Health budget to address the interstate and gender-driven wage disparity impacting nurses and midwives.
“The government must find this new money, because if it doesn’t, the current recruitment and retention challenges will only worsen. The government cannot afford to lose any more nurses or midwives. It must fix this now, or the public health patients of NSW will suffer.”
