I don’t doubt they all deserve a 15% pay rise but that’s going to mean big sacrifices elsewhere in public expenditure.
CrysisRelief on
Have these nurses tried holding commercial real estate interests?
I’m sure then the Premier would be able to meet any demands they dreamt up.
I can’t believe Labor are **choosing** to be this out of touch with the working class (backbone) people of this country. It doesn’t matter which Labor run state you look at, they are all doing a horrible job at tackling literally any crisis we find ourselves in. They always find themselves opposed to *regular* people and will always side with big business and shitty neoliberal policies that benefit the few.
I know it’s a bit of a farce to say Lib/Lab are 1:1 but they really aren’t that distinguishable at this distance.
DramaticSalamander15 on
Full disclosure- I am a NSW public sector nurses.
There’s a few things that I don’t see covered enough on this fight:
1) It was an election promise to substantially lift public service wages, not just abolish the cap (what use is no cap if you barely increase pay above it anyway).
2) Last year we asked for 10% and agreed to 4%, with the promise we’d ask for more this year. The government promised statewide ratios to support this agreement last year. So far that’s been promised in 7 out of >220 public hospitals in NSW.
3) There’s no movement on even the proposals that wouldn’t even cost the government anything- like consecutive days off or not having nightshift immediately before annual leave (meaning you finish work on the morning of your annual leave day)
4) QLD nurses get paid 18% more as a base rate (not to mention penalties on top of that). Nurses at Tweed hospital would get $12K/yr base more, $10k for moving, and another $10K for staying a year for driving 20min over the border- which they’re doing.
5) The health system currently gets 50% of the benefit from our salary sacrificing- something that’s meant to be for social funds for the staff, education etc, yet in most places we don’t see where that money goes.
6) We want more sick leave- any minor cold can be deadly when dealing with at risk populations, and the frequency that we interact with people that have communicable diseases (like COVID) means that we get sick more often.
7) 15% equals just over 10% in lost wage increases under the liberals due to their legislated wage cap over a decade, and just over 4% for inflation/increase in cost of living this year. We may get small wage increases every year, but because it doesn’t match inflation our dollar effectively buys less- ie it’s a real wage decline.
8) After 10 meetings with the union, the government hasn’t made a single change to their offer of 10.5% over 3 years (which includes a federally mandated super increase of 0.5%/year). There has been no effort to negotiate, and the health ministry hasn’t even been authorised by the treasurer to negotiate on pay.
9) The government proudly flaunts “the largest wage increase for NSW nurses in over a decade”. What does this mean? They gave 4% instead of the previous government’s 3% (when we asked for 10%). This year they claim to have given 40% more pay then the last government.
3 Comments
I don’t doubt they all deserve a 15% pay rise but that’s going to mean big sacrifices elsewhere in public expenditure.
Have these nurses tried holding commercial real estate interests?
I’m sure then the Premier would be able to meet any demands they dreamt up.
I can’t believe Labor are **choosing** to be this out of touch with the working class (backbone) people of this country. It doesn’t matter which Labor run state you look at, they are all doing a horrible job at tackling literally any crisis we find ourselves in. They always find themselves opposed to *regular* people and will always side with big business and shitty neoliberal policies that benefit the few.
I know it’s a bit of a farce to say Lib/Lab are 1:1 but they really aren’t that distinguishable at this distance.
Full disclosure- I am a NSW public sector nurses.
There’s a few things that I don’t see covered enough on this fight:
1) It was an election promise to substantially lift public service wages, not just abolish the cap (what use is no cap if you barely increase pay above it anyway).
2) Last year we asked for 10% and agreed to 4%, with the promise we’d ask for more this year. The government promised statewide ratios to support this agreement last year. So far that’s been promised in 7 out of >220 public hospitals in NSW.
3) There’s no movement on even the proposals that wouldn’t even cost the government anything- like consecutive days off or not having nightshift immediately before annual leave (meaning you finish work on the morning of your annual leave day)
4) QLD nurses get paid 18% more as a base rate (not to mention penalties on top of that). Nurses at Tweed hospital would get $12K/yr base more, $10k for moving, and another $10K for staying a year for driving 20min over the border- which they’re doing.
5) The health system currently gets 50% of the benefit from our salary sacrificing- something that’s meant to be for social funds for the staff, education etc, yet in most places we don’t see where that money goes.
6) We want more sick leave- any minor cold can be deadly when dealing with at risk populations, and the frequency that we interact with people that have communicable diseases (like COVID) means that we get sick more often.
7) 15% equals just over 10% in lost wage increases under the liberals due to their legislated wage cap over a decade, and just over 4% for inflation/increase in cost of living this year. We may get small wage increases every year, but because it doesn’t match inflation our dollar effectively buys less- ie it’s a real wage decline.
8) After 10 meetings with the union, the government hasn’t made a single change to their offer of 10.5% over 3 years (which includes a federally mandated super increase of 0.5%/year). There has been no effort to negotiate, and the health ministry hasn’t even been authorised by the treasurer to negotiate on pay.
9) The government proudly flaunts “the largest wage increase for NSW nurses in over a decade”. What does this mean? They gave 4% instead of the previous government’s 3% (when we asked for 10%). This year they claim to have given 40% more pay then the last government.
10) Evidence/research (funded by the union)
https://www.nswnma.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Escaping-NSW-Treasurys-Curse-NSW-Nurses-and-Midwives-Pay-1999-2024-and-beyond.pdf