The Minns government is playing hardball on nurses’ pay demands. It’s unlikely to win in the court of public opinion.
Colette Duff is angry and ready to quit her job. Duff, a registered nurse with 30 years of experience, works in the emergency department of Sutherland Hospital. She drives a beaten-up, 14-year-old Toyota Corolla and earns less than $50 an hour.
But in axing the wages cap, which many economists argued was too blunt an instrument, the Labor government has opened a Pandora’s Box of grievances where different branches of public sector workers eye off what each other get and, not surprisingly, demand the same. This is creating a divided and disgruntled public service. The scenes outside Macquarie Street on Wednesday left little doubt about that.
At the same time, Premier Chris Minns has ruled out budging from his 10.5 per cent offer for the state’s almost 50,000 nurses unless cuts are found elsewhere. The police agreed to cut back their bloated death-and-disability scheme, which will allow those savings to be redirected to wages. Nurses will need to find similar savings before Minns caves.
The nurses, however, are not without fault in this battle. As a circuit breaker, NSW Health agreed to an interim 3 per cent pay rise for nurses, backdated to July 1. The understanding was that no strike action would take place while the government and union thrashed out a final agreement.
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