‘Successful unions don’t stand still – the challenge is always to build strength,’ says outgoing NSWNMA General Secretary, Brett Holmes.

After a working life dedicated to the nursing and midwifery professions – including 20 years as leader of the NSWNMA – Brett Holmes is changing gears.

Brett retired as general secretary at our Annual Conference to move to the Mid North Coast to start a new life chapter and with fresh ideas for how he can contribute to the community.

“I hope to make a contribution through volunteering in my new local community in whatever form that takes – perhaps marine rescue or the Men’s Shed.”

“I want to do something that benefits my community. I’ve focused on nursing all my life and now I’m ready to go further afield.”

In the 20 years of his leadership, the NSWNMA grew from 50,000 to nearly 75,000 members. It has become a powerful and respected champion for nursing and midwifery. It has been a staunch defender of our public health and aged care systems.

And all this, despite operating for long periods under anti-union Liberal governments at state and federal levels.

The key to this success, Brett says, is a focus on “always building the strength of the union”.

“We set targets for developing member leaders to support branch officials in order to strengthen the capacity of members at workplaces, so they are able to respond to management and fight for better outcomes,” he said.

Improving workloads has been the union’s main goal since Brett became general secretary in 2002.

“We started with language like ‘reasonable workloads’, which we achieved in the What’s a nurse worth? campaign.

“Having language in the award is one thing – strengthening the power of the branch to enforce it has been the next highest priority,” he said.

A difficult political environment

Many fellow unionists see the Association as a model of a sophisticated, modern union and to achieve that, Brett says you need “good people and good governance practices”.

“The nursing and midwifery professions have high standards, and high performance is expected of members as individuals. But they also set high standards for their organisations.

“I was fortunate to be able to stand on the shoulders of very good, prior leaders who had put in place many systems that we were able to expand and grow as the union became bigger and more sophisticated.

“That was supported by a forward-thinking, cooperative council that was very willing and able to support change and drive further sophistication of the organisation.”

Brett says the union has often had to operate in a difficult political environment. He cites John Howard’s WorkChoices, which weakened enterprise bargaining, and the O’Farrell government laws, which undermined the independence of the industrial umpire in NSW.

“It forced the union into having a political focus in order to deliver change. I have no doubt that the O’Farrell laws stifled the development of safe patient care with a wages policy that took any real discussions about workplace change off the table and made it into a purely political decision, to be given or taken away as the government wished.

“That forced us into public campaigning over issues that previously we had been able to take to the bargaining table with the option of going to arbitration.

“That had an impact on our ability and our members’ ability to improve the health system, to improve patient care.

“The government didn’t want to know about productivity or about patient safety from an industrial perspective. They just wanted nurses to take their money, shut up and go away. Our members were never prepared to do that.”

New leaders are “tenacious”

Brett says nurses and midwives have come to realise that we cannot shy away from the political process.

“It has been a long process of education – to understand who are the decision-makers in health and the importance of our members’ vote and voice if they want change.”

Brett says his last big decision was to encourage capable leaders to take the union forward into the future.

“Shaye Candish (the new General Secretary) has the absolute conviction and energy to drive the union towards its goals. Michael Whaites (the new Assistant General Secretary) has international experience in leading workers as well as decades of experience leading nurses and midwives.

“Both have the tenacity and will to continue the fight with govern-ment to deliver better outcomes in the workplace and to achieve better conditions.

“They both have leadership qualities of being able to look at the bigger picture, to listen to the best advice and to make good decisions.”

Quickfire with Brett

Biggest achievement

“Winning Nursing Hours Per Patient Day in 2010 was a major breakthrough. Not perfect, but 1600 more nurses and decent pay rises and with a level of accountability that the health services hadn’t experienced before.”

Biggest regret

“Not having delivered 75,000 members (the NSWNMA currently has 74,494!) and achieving nurse-to-patient ratios before I retired.”

Most rewarding campaign

“The campaign to stop the privatisation of regional hospitals. It was a campaign of collective action and it was most rewarding because we were able to work very well with the doctors, other health workers’ unions and the community.”

On the impact of COVID-19

“Nurses and midwives have shown their dedication to the work they do but they’ve also experienced vulnerability as workers having to put their lives on the line. COVID has also shown the importance of the health system to the whole of society and also to the economy because a sick workforce doesn’t produce very much at all.”