A rank-and-file ticket, Time for a Handover, will challenge the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association (NSWNMA) leadership in the elections, due during September and October.
Elections take place every four years and, apart from a challenge to the Assistant General Secretary position four years ago, there has been no contest for more than a decade. The general secretary position has not been challenged in more than 20 years.
Registered Nurse Viola Morris, a former federal organiser in aged care, told Green Left that many NSWNMA members feel unheard and that it was time for a handover to “the nurses and midwives on the floor”.
The NSWNMA leadership’s decision to stop industrial action to win better wages and conditions has been criticised.
“The decision to stop the protected strike action and run a wage case in the NSW Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) was unlikely to lead to major improvements to members’ pay and conditions,” Morris said. “No matter how compelling the union’s evidence was, the IRC was going to comply with the government’s wages policy; that was always going to be a ceiling on our potential wages growth.”
The IRC ruled in April that nurses and midwives working in NSW Health would receive a pay rise of 16–28%, with Assistants in Nursing, who make up about 4% of the workforce, receiving a 28% rise over four years.
Critics say the IRC’s decision fails to deal with structural issues and wage reform.
The union had initially sought a three-year agreement, to expire in mid-2027. Morris said the IRC penalised the NSWNMA for taking industrial action by extending the life of the agreement to 2028. It means that nurses and midwives are prohibited from taking industrial action on pay until then.
“This means they will remain some of the lowest paid in the country — in the state with the highest cost of living,” Morris said. With an election in nine months, Morris said the government has calculated that wages won’t be a discussion but “it’s got that wrong”.
“We should not have stopped strike action until we had our reasonable demands of pay parity with Queensland and Victoria met, if not exceeded.”
Morris is running for the position of general secretary with the Time for a Handover ticket. An organiser in the public and aged care system for 13 years, she said that since COVID-19, the union has been “less and less” aligned with members’ needs.
Nurses and midwives feel burnt out and angry. “Violence and bed block keep getting worse, maternity and mental health services are being slashed and the union is not fighting for its members.”
Time for a Handover is campaigning to make the union leadership accountable. That means being “led by the people who do the work”, and ensuring the union remains independent of all political parties.
Morris said the ticket is also focused on workplace health and safety.
“The NSWNMA’s Occupational Violence: has no place in my workplace report said more than 90% of nurses and midwives working in public hospitals have seen or experienced violence in the past six months. Yet, it says that more than 70% of nurses or midwives don’t believe anything will be done if it’s reported.
“Nurses and midwives working in regional remote areas have felt forgotten for too long. Hospitals can go years without an organiser visiting, even though many services have shut, or been reduced, since Labor came to power in 2023.
“Those members still pay the same fees as metro members; they have the same workplace health and safety concerns as other members.
“Labor has let the people of NSW down by leaving our wages low and not addressing the safety of its staff or patients and members need their union to stand up.”
[The Time for Handover ticket is holding an information night for union members on July 27 at 6pm. You can register here.]