nurses pay rise

Sick and tired of being overworked and underpaid

October 11, 2024 by Madeline Lucre Leave a Comment

It was loud and raucous with a lot of colour and movement but the message from thousands of members at a rally outside Chris Minns’ electoral office was clear and unequivocal: we deserve a 15 per cent.

Public sector nurses and midwives from across New South Wales held a 12.5 hour, and several 24 hour, strikes on 10 September, as our campaign for a 15 per cent, one-year pay rise ramped up.

As The Lamp goes to print a second strike is about to take place.

Fed up with being ignored by the government, thousands of NSWNMA members walked off the job throughout NSW.

Busloads of members from all the major Sydney metropolitan hospitals converged on the Premier’s Kogarah office to deliver a united message for change.

“Nurses and midwives campaigned hard for this government. This government offered the hope of change. They promised to value frontline and essential workers. And yet today we have been forced to the streets because this government has ignored us and taken us for granted,” NSWNMA General Secretary Shaye Candish told the crowd.

“The state government is not bargaining in good faith. Not once in our 10 negotiation meetings has the government sat at the table and discussed nurses and midwives’ pay.”

Shaye said the government and Ministry of Health had been forthcoming on minor issues such as the right to a notice board but there was a deathly silence on substantive issues like pay and a right to have two days off.

Shaye said members were sick and tired of being undervalued, overworked, and not listened to.

She pointed out that the government had promised during the election to lift the wages cap and to reinvest productivity savings into wages.

“We found the productivity savings needed to pay for our pay increase in a business case prepared by prominent financial advisers, Deloitte. That analysis went through a validation process with government to confirm the efficiencies were real, and yet despite this, there is still no revised wage offer.”

According to Deloitte’s financial analysis, the state government has missed out on untapped Commonwealth revenue due to inaccurate hospital reporting. The report also highlighted widespread savings to be generated by reducing costs associated with staff turnover, overtime, agency staffing, and hospital acquired complications.

This increase in revenue and savings would cover the cost of implementing our 2024 claim.

“We did everything they asked for, jumped through every hoop and still no revised wage offer,” Shaye said.

She said the government had to face up to two particular challenges posed by low pay for NSW nurses and midwives – the attraction of other states with better pay and conditions and the gender pay gap.

“It’s clear the state government is choosing to pay nurses and midwives the lowest wages in the country, and it will continue to see our public health system fall apart if it doesn’t pay nurses and midwives enough to stay in NSW.”

“NSW Labor was elected on a platform of gender equity and supporting women in work. They’re now refusing to fix the gender pay gap and not deliver the state’s largest female-dominated workforce fair and reasonable pay.

“A workforce of 86 per cent females has its own unique gender-based challenges that is exacerbated by denying us two days off in a row!”

Shaye said the NSWNMA was asking “the women of this government to help and to stand up for us. We need these women to look at the stats, look at the data and demand their own government address the gender bias that keeps wages low and denies basic conditions for nurses and midwives.”

A time of transformation

October 11, 2024 by Madeline Lucre Leave a Comment

The political and industrial environment we operate in has changed markedly and as our organisational capacity has grown, we are well placed to leverage the opportunities arising from these changes, NSWNMA General Secretary Shaye Candish told Annual Conference.

Shaye said despite the undoubted progress the union still faces formidable challenges.

“We still have an incredible amount of work to do if we want to see a significant shift in the deeply ingrained injustices our nursing and midwifery professions face every day.”

She said there have been significant changes to industrial law at the federal and state levels that have created a more level playing field.

“We are finally starting to see the pendulum swing back in favour of workers.

“These changes were called for by the union movement and they give better rights to delegates, more opportunities to organise collectively for enterprise agreements and new options for workers in community interest sectors like healthcare and aged care.”

In NSW, changes to the Industrial Relations Commission mean that there will be a system that offers conciliation and arbitration and opportunities to specifically explore the impact of gender, and recruitment and retention when considering pay and conditions.

“As I see it, the challenge for unions now, is to leverage these new opportunities to advance the interest of workers, specifically, for nurses and midwives,” she said.

There has been a transformation within the union too with an increased emphasis on organising.

“ This type of organising is methodical, and systematic. This is what it truly takes to win, especially to win the type of improvements you all deserve. And we are starting to see the emergence of this approach coming to life in our campaigns,” Shaye said.

“We are setting pay ambitions campaign by campaign, that focus on pay parity with other states, or other employers, gender equity and the impact of historical undervaluing.

“In collaboration with the ANMF and our other sister branches we have filed our next work value case to address the historic undervaluing of care work as it relates to the Nurses Award.

“As always, there is more to do, but our recent gains on pay are significant and we are determined to ensure you are paid what you’re worth – we need to see wages that value, respect and reflect the work you do.”

PROGRESS IN PRIVATE HOSPITALS AND AGED CARE

Shaye said the union was focussed on campaigns for ratios across the Public Health System and private hospitals, pushing for clauses in enterprise agreements and awards that ensure compliance, with the aim of having organised members capable of enforcing conditions.

“In aged care, RN 24/7 is finally being realised after years of campaigning by this union.

“Care minutes have also commenced in aged care facilities ensuring minimum staffing levels, thanks to our campaigning. There remains work to do on this to ensure compliance and transparency.

“And we are pushing for care minutes clauses in enterprise agreements, or clauses that reflect care minutes as a ratio instead.”

STRONG MEMBERSHIP GROWTH

Over the past year, the union’s membership has grown by 3.5 per cent and is now just shy of 80,000 members.

“What we need to do now is turn our incredible growth and numbers into activism which is how we make our voice heard,” she said.

As well as campaigning for improved workplace conditions the union has been active in several areas of social justice including housing, the environment, closing the gap and addressing student poverty.

“The challenge for us is to ensure that we have members engaged at scale. We need to be bold and brave; we have to take risks, and we have to do things we haven’t been willing to do before. We have to be methodical in growing our power.”

‘Ambitious’ PHS award claim seeks comprehensive workplace reform

June 2, 2023 by Madeline Lucre Leave a Comment

The NSWNMA has lodged its claim for 2023 with the NSW Ministry of Health, outlining a comprehensive list of proposed changes to the Public Health System Nurses’ and Midwives’ (State) Award.

NSWNMA General Secretary, Shaye Candish, said this year’s claim was unanimously endorsed by the union’s public sector branches, and was deliberately ambitious to secure workplace reforms, as well as to attract and retain skilled nurses and midwives in public health.

The claim also seeks a 10 per cent increase in pay and wage-related allowances plus superannuation effective from 1 July 2023.

Shaye said nurses and midwives in the public health system had seen “little to no improvements to their working conditions for the past decade”.

“Our members have campaigned for nurse-to-patient ratios for a long time. They shouldered the brunt of the pandemic for three long years, and they’ve gone to extraordinary lengths to deliver patient-centred care, often to the detriment of their own health and wellbeing,” she said.

“We have a comprehensive claim this year detailing evidence-based improvements to staffing across a range of specialty areas, which would increase workforce wellbeing and provide better support for professional development.”

NSWNMA Assistant General Secretary, Michael Whaites, said the establishment of a Safe Staffing Levels Taskforce (see box) with NSWNMA representatives “would ensure the outdated ‘Nursing Hours Per Patient Day’ system converts to a minimum and enforceable safe staffing model within the award”.

“We are focused on continuing the fight for safe staffing ratios, relief from cost-of-living pressures, and decent wages that adequately reflect the work of skilled professionals,” Michael said.

“Our 2023 claim aims to ensure public sector nurses and midwives can deliver high-quality care to all patients, regardless of where they live in NSW, and we will continue advocating on behalf of our members for as long as it takes.”

Key features of the claim

Ratios applied shift by shift – based on the actual number of patients in each unit

‘Specials’ in addition to ratios or rostered staffing minimums

In charge of shift in addition to minimum ratios and without a patient load

AiNs and AiMs in addition to minimum ratios.

Plus a 10 per cent increase in pay and wage related allowances plus superannuation effective from 1 July 2023.

Download a snapshot of the claim or view the entire claim here.

Labor’s election win changes the game on ratios

June 2, 2023 by Madeline Lucre Leave a Comment

A change of government in NSW is a victory for political participation by nurses and midwives and creates a new pathway for the implementation of ratios.

The Lamp talked to NSWNMA members in the public

health system about the election result and the consequences for public health in NSW.

An opportunity for change

Geoff Hudson, branch president at Albury Hospital, said from his personal perspective, the NSW election result was great.

“My partner [Dr Amanda Cohn] was elected to the Upper House, and is now the Greens spokesperson for Health. She has moved a notice of motion about reinforcing support for our ratios campaign.”

Geoff said Albury branch members were active during the election campaign, with street stalls and letterboxing with flyers for ratios.

“Nurses are very happy with the change of government,” he said.

Geoff said, following the election, his colleagues “are certainly hopeful but we are really just watching, waiting to see”.

“People think there is an opportunity for change to happen now.”

He said the Albury branch voted unanimously for the 2023 claim.

“Certainly, workloads and ratios are the biggest issues,” he said.

“We are in a bit of a unique position in Albury, on the border with the Victorian side a couple of kilometres away. We see a real disparity because they have ratios in Victoria and because they haven’t had the same pay cap that we’ve been subject to.”

Geoff said the branch will continue to engage with the community about our issues.

“Our next step as a branch is to try to get some local media to get ratios back on the agenda. And we want to make sure that all our members are aware of the new claim and what we are asking for.

“My biggest concern going forward is the lack of timeframe around the government making changes. The government has said they will implement ratios – although not the full claim we have asked for – but they have not put a timeframe around that.”

“I’m cautiously optimistic”

Alicia Rodgers, the branch secretary at Nepean Hospital is an RN in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

She said the election is a step forward in our campaign but we need to maintain pressure or “we won’t be able to make change”.

“I think it is really positive that members across NSW have voted in support of our 2023 claim,” she said.

“I’m cautiously optimistic, but I think there is a lot of work before we get any meaningful change in NICU and Special Care Nurseries.”

“My colleagues in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) were subdued after the election. We are, unfortunately, one of the units that didn’t get a commitment from the incoming government to improve nurse to patient ratios.”

She said NICU nurses are asking for ratios of one-to-one in neonatal intensive care, one-to-two in high-dependency units, and one-to-three in a special care nursery unit.

“Critically, we are also asking for access nurses, which some of our adult ICUs have. We are also asking for things like lactation consultants. They are currently not available in all NICUs to support mothers to express milk for their sick or preterm baby.”

Alicia said a group of NICU nurses were able to engage with the new Minister of Health, Ryan Park, at the strike rally outside Parliament House last November.

“We spoke to him about ratios in NICU, and we really impressed on him why ratios are important.

“He told us he was listening, and we really hope he was listening and will have some discussions with his colleagues.

“We would welcome the Health Minister to come and meet with neonatal nurses to get an idea about what happens in NICU and Special Care Nurseries.

“All people in NSW deserve safe care from their nurses and their midwives; NSW should be leading our country in terms of health care, not trailing behind.

Excited but apprehensive

Samantha Gregory-Jones, NSWNMA branch delegate for the Canowindra Health Service, said her colleagues are expecting a change of government to lead to concrete improvements in their health service.

“We are a rural facility – a fifteen-bed facility staffed to run ten with ambulatory care and an ED – and we work with a base of one RN and one EN.

“For us [if the ALP delivers on its promise] it would mean having two RNs on a shift, and a third person all the time.”

Samantha said there was a mixture of feelings after the election.

“We were excited, but we were apprehensive at the same time. [The result] was kind of like we had a bit of a sigh of relief. Initially, my members were saying ‘It means another RN, and it means we are not working in isolation’.”

Samantha said that even though Canowindra is a small service, NSWNMA members were willing participants in the campaign leading up to the election – as was the local community.

“We did participate in the very first strike in 2022. We had all our members involved – about ten of us, and three of us were on shift.

“The community members who came said ‘We’re here because you literally saved our lives, and we are so thankful’.

“For the second strike, we all wore red shirts. On our shifts, we didn’t do anything that wasn’t about saving lives or directly impacting the patients: so, we didn’t make beds, we didn’t do the midnight timesheets.”

Samantha said there was strong support for the NSWNMA’s 2023 claim – inside and outside the hospital.

“We had a one hundred-per-cent-unanimous yes vote. Ratios are so important.

“Our local member, [Independent] Philip Donato, has popped out a couple of times and had a photo taken with us, and is very supportive. That is one motivation to see there is light. And we do feel as if our metropolitan colleagues are lifting us up.”

The government does it because it can

December 16, 2022 by Madeline Lucre Leave a Comment

The wage caps were first imposed to reduce deficits incurred during the GFC. When the deficits were replaced by booming surpluses, the government justified the policy with reference to low inflation. Now that inflation is spiking they just impose them because they can.

What was originally billed as a temporary, emergency measure to help the state deal with fiscal deficits in the wake of the 2008–09 Global Financial Crisis, has become a permanent feature of wages policy governing public sector workers in NSW.

The state government initially imposed a cap on annual wage gains for workers in state-funded public services of 2.5 per cent in 2012–13, supposedly necessitated by the modest deficits incurred by the state after the GFC.

Those deficits were never large: they peaked at $1.7 billion in 2012–13 – equal to just 0.4 per cent of the state’s GDP that year.

And those deficits quickly disappeared due to the combination of fiscal austerity and renewed economic growth. In fact, starting in 2013–14 the state ran a series of six consecutive annual operating surpluses (amounting to a combined total of over $20 billion).

This had no impact on the state government’s draconian wages policy: the 2.5 per cent pay cap remained in place, even as the state racked up record surpluses that reached $5.7 billion in 2016–17 alone.

Later the government tried to justify the policy with reference to inflation – claiming they were intended to be consistent with the Reserve Bank’s target of 2.5 per cent annual inflation. But when inflation leaped well above that benchmark, the government quickly dropped that justification for the caps.

Dr Jim Stanford of the Australia Institute said the wages cap policy is motivated by ideology and politics, not fiscal necessity.

“After a decade of sustained pay suppression, in good years and in bad, it is now clear the government imposes these harsh restrictions on public sector pay, without free negotiation or consideration of normal wage determinants – like the cost of living, productivity, or wage comparators – as a matter of political and fiscal convenience,” he said.

Wage caps have damaged the economy

A disturbing finding in the report is that the NSW wages cap policy has “since been mimicked by other states, by the Commonwealth Government and even by local and regional councils – all of which have been eager to dispense with normal collective bargaining mechanisms in order to achieve short-term fiscal savings”.

This, it said, has had damaging consequences for Australia’s economy. Specifically, it has led to “an unprecedented slowdown of wage growth across Australia’s labour market since 2013”.

“The NSW pay caps have had a particularly harmful impact on overall wage trends – not just in NSW, but across the country.”

“The NSW Government’s pay caps suppressed pay for all workers, not just its own employees – and helped set off a historical slump in wage growth that has be-devilled Australia’s macroeconomy ever since.”

A message of solidarity to UK nurses and midwives

December 15, 2022 by Madeline Lucre Leave a Comment

The NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association have sent a letter of support for UK nurses and midwives engaging in strike action on the 15th of December 2022.

Dear Unison, Public and Commercial Services Union, and Royal College of Nursing members,

On the eve of your historical set of strike actions to secure fair pay and safe staffing levels, we send our heartfelt support and solidarity from the New South Wales Nurses and Midwives’ Association in Australia.

Your courage is acknowledged and admired from afar, and your Australian nursing and midwifery colleagues support every effort being taken across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

We hear you; we see you, and we stand with you in fighting for change. Our members have been fighting your fight; a fight for ratios, for more resources and a fight for a pay rise that reflects the work we do and meets the rising cost of living.

As we know, from taking multiple strike actions across New South Wales this year against an obstinately uncooperative state government, no nurse or midwife ever takes industrial action lightly. It is abhorrent governments continue to disrespect nurses and midwives and take our professions for granted.

Enough is enough. Stand tall for the safety of both those in your care, your colleagues, and your communities. Patient safety is fundamental to quality healthcare and must be a priority.

Safe staffing matters, and you deserve fair wages that recognise your contribution and pay the bills.

Yours sincerely

SHAYE CANDISH

General Secretary

NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association

On behalf of NSW nurses and midwives