Nurses from Riverina, South Coast and Wollongong take wage fight to NSW Parliament

Nurses from the Riverina, South Coast, Wollongong and Yass took buses to Sydney on Wednesday (13 November) to join a 12,000-strong protest over the NSW Government’s refusal to grant them a 15 per cent pay rise.

NSW Nurses & Midwives Association (NSWNMA) members walked off the job for a full day across the state after negotiations with Health Minister Ryan Park once again broke down. Rallies were held outside NSW Parliament and in regional towns.

“We’re very tired, we are working double shifts, we are struggling to recruit, all these things are going to make it so much harder for regional hospitals,” NSWNMA Griffith branch secretary Kristy Wilson said.

Nurses have taken four strike actions over the past four months in a push to have their wage levels brought to a level on par with Queensland and Victoria.

“Our health system is in crisis; we can’t afford to lose more nurses interstate. We are hoping that this action will get the government to come to the table and get them to negotiate in good faith,” Ms Wilson said.

“We want safe staffing levels, not for us, but for our communities.”

Ms Wilson said the NSW Government’s announcement on Wednesday that NSW Police would receive an average wage increase of 26 per cent over four years was hard to take.

“I have no doubt police deserve their pay increase, but this makes us angry … it definitely feels like a gender issue, nursing is female-dominated, policing is male-dominated; this is going to increase the gender pay gap.”

NSW Health Minister Ryan Park criticised the strike action, which resulted in a number of planned surgeries being cancelled.

“Over the course of four weeks of intensive negotiations we have reached agreement on all of the association’s non-wage claims, as well as put forward a range of options to fund and deliver a new increased wage offer,” he said.

“The association had previously agreed to cease industrial action contingent on the government paying nurses and midwives an interim increase while work towards a final settlement remains on foot, in order to shield patient care from impacts arising from industrial action.

“I am disappointed the association has walked away from this commitment to the Industrial Relations Commission and the community.”

Ms Wilson, however, said there was never an agreement on the table and that the government had given up on good faith negotiations.

“They want us to give up our conditions for an increased wage offer … but if you’re giving something up to get a pay rise, it’s not a pay rise,” she said.

She called on the community to support their nurses by writing to their local MP and signing petitions that will be circulated across towns over the coming weeks.

NSWNMA assistant general secretary Michael Whaites said the government was refusing to put an offer to nurses and midwives that would address the underlying problems in the health sector.

“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,” he said.

“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.”

Original Article published by Oliver Jacques on Region Riverina.