NSW nurses and midwives walk off the job after pay negotiations fail

ABC NEWS (Australia)

More than 50 thousand nurses and midwives in New South Wales have walked of the job after pay negotiations with the state government fell through

Transcript

00:00The RRC ordered the union to call off their 12 and a half hour strike, but as you can

00:07see behind me here at Chris Min's office in Coggera, thousands of nurses and midwives

00:12have gathered out here to start that strike today.

00:14They've not heeded that call and they're going on strike demanding a better pay rise.

00:19I'm joined now by the branch member from the Sutherland Hospital.

00:23Why are you here today?

00:26I feel like I've been kicked in the guts.

00:29The Labor government was elected on a promise of supporting nurses and midwives, treating

00:32us fairly, giving us a fair pay rise, implementing ratios, and they've just let us down.

00:37They haven't delivered on a fair pay rise, 10% over three years is an absolute disgrace.

00:43If we were men, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

00:46This is a gender pay gap that needs to be addressed.

00:48Now I understand that things have been bad for 12 years, this is a longstanding issue,

00:52but Labor governments fix these problems, so my expectation and the expectation of my

00:56colleagues is that Chris and Daniel and the rest of the government will take leadership

01:01on this issue and correct this injustice.

01:05We are working hard.

01:06We have endured spitting, punching, kicking, swearing, insults, accusations of corruption

01:13from vaccine companies to work through COVID and Chris promised us that he would look after

01:18us after COVID, he would look after us now.

01:20I'm not feeling looked after, neither are my colleagues.

01:23I think it's appalling that we've got nurses who can't get home loans because their HECS

01:27debt is so large, they've got no chance of paying it off on the current wages.

01:32Why would you do nursing?

01:34We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to fix this problem.

01:37We can offer fair pay, we can make the conditions viable for our young nurses to stay in the

01:43system so that we have a strong, healthy public health system that can look after the community

01:48like our community expects us.

01:50Otherwise, I can assure you it's a very long drive to Queensland.

01:53Now Collette Duff, the union is asking for a 15% pay rise.

01:57Now today's decision to go on strike didn't come lightly.

02:00Before yesterday, of course, the Health Minister, he said it's going to cause a lot of disruptions

02:05to patients in hospitals.

02:07What's your response to that?

02:08Well, the first thing is that we do take, we take our code of ethics very, very seriously

02:14and we have made sure that there is safe staffing back there.

02:16There is a skeleton staff.

02:18All life-threatening emergencies will be taken care of.

02:20But if you're there for something simple, something that can be managed by a GP, you

02:23are going to wait.

02:26If the government was serious about safe care in hospitals and keeping the community safe,

02:32we wouldn't need to be out here today.

02:34I wouldn't need to take a 12-hour pay cut this pay to come out here and make my opinion

02:39and my values known to the government.

02:42They would have just done the right thing in the first place.

02:45This is just one of dozens of rallies being held across the state at the moment.

02:48More than 50,000 members are set to take part.

02:51How big is this movement at the moment pushing for a substantial pay rise?

02:54I've been working for nearly 30 years in the system.

02:56I have never seen people this angry and this determined.

03:01And it's across all the different generations and across the different age groups.

03:05People are absolutely furious that we've been let down.

03:09I've got people back at work who voted Labor for the first time ever.

03:13One girl rang her grandfather to apologise for voting Labor because it was a big decision

03:17for her.

03:19Do the right thing.

03:20Pay us our 15 per cent.

03:22It's required for us to be able to continue to afford to work as nurses.

03:28We will keep people safe.

03:30That is where we're at.

03:31That is our motivation for being here.

03:33We need the right amount of staff in the right place at the right time.

03:36And the 15 per cent is the first way to get there.

03:38OK, Colette Duff, thank you so much.

03:40Just a branch member from the Sutherland Hospital here demanding a 15 per cent pay increase

03:44for nurses and midwives in New South Wales.

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