“We had about 90 people attending (the branch meeting), and they unanimously passed a resolution for a four-hour walkout over the inadequate pay offer.
Our walkout was really successful because we had built a network of stewards throughout the hospital. We try to have one in every department, and they pass information onto the 500 members.
The members are really unhappy. We’ve had a subsequent meeting rejecting the government’s further 2.5 per cent pay offer. These are people who are frontline healthcare workers in a pandemic, who were denied a suitable pay rise in 2020, and so I wouldn’t be surprised if they decided to take further action.
We’ve also had some cases of aggressive incidents from healthcare users. And through our workload committee, we saw data that showed the health service was breaching the Award by not meeting the NHPPD requirement. We saw how inadequate that was and called for ratios to be implemented statewide.
Ninety people came to the action. Some came in their own time, some were just finishing their shifts, and a small number walked off the job. We were really impressed with those numbers.
I’m really glad our branch had that walkout because it felt like we were involved in something that was potentially going to bring about some change. It was a really empowering thing to do. Those members who participated felt they were really engaged and wanted to make a change.”
— Michael Clarke, President, Shoalhaven Branch