Healthscope is owned by a hugely profitable corporate giant but its NSW nurses and midwives must fight to get the same pay as the company’s Queensland nursing staff.
Nurses and midwives working for Healthscope in NSW have stopped work and held rallies in support of improved pay and conditions and safer staffing.
During November NSWNM A members staged strikes at several of the company’s hospitals, including Northern Beaches, Norwest Private, Nepean Private and Campbelltown Private, Sydney Southwest Private, Hunter Valley Private Hospital and Newcastle Private Hospital.
NSWNMA Healthscope members voted in a secret ballot to approve industrial action.
More than 77 per cent of members voted in the ballot, and over 95 per cent of those who participated voted ‘Yes’.
Healthscope is Australia’s second biggest private hospital operator with 38 hospitals in all states and territories including 12 in NSW.
However, its NSW nursing and midwifery staff are paid less than their Queensland colleagues and experience heavy workloads while the company refuses to even discuss nurse to patient ratios such as those in the public health system.
“It is clear that our members are tired and fed up with the pay and conditions at Healthscope,” said NSWNMA General Secretary Shaye Candish.
“How does Healthscope think it is acceptable to pay its NSW nurses and midwives up to 16 per cent less than their colleagues in Queensland- based Healthscope hospitals for the same work?”
PARENT COMPANY CAN AFFORD TO PAY
She said Healthscope could afford to fund a decent pay rise and increases to staffing levels.
The company is owned by Brookfield, a global asset management company that distributed US$2.2 billion (A$3.4 billion) to shareholders in the 12 months to August 2024.
“Our members have been negotiating with Healthscope for almost six months now with little progress on our pay and conditions claim,” Shaye said in November.
“Members feel they have no choice but to take industrial action, after being undervalued and receiving inadequate recognition for their incredible contribution to patients and workplaces.”
Since May, the NSWNMA has held 15 bargaining meetings with Healthscope to negotiate a new enterprise agreement, but the company has refused to budge on the union’s main claims.
They include mandated nurse/ midwife-to-patient ratios and a 15 per cent one-year pay increase from 1 July 2024, with ongoing increases over the life of the agreement to maintain pay rates above those in the public health system.
Healthscope’s pay offer was 13 per cent over three years when this edition of The Lamp went to press.