SA nurses to take industrial action next week as enterprise agreement talks with State Government stall
Angry nurses will begin industrial action next week if they can’t reach an agreement with the State Government on safe staffing levels and a 3.5 per cent wage increase.
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Nurses and midwives will take industrial action next week if agreement with the State Government cannot be reached on measures including safe staffing levels and a 3.5 per cent wage increase.
The current three-year enterprise agreement expired last month and six months of negotiations failed to reach agreement after “almost every patient safety measure being sought by public sector nurses and midwives” was rejected, the union says.
SA nursing and midwife union chief executive Elizabeth Dabars said industrial action would begin “from next week” unless the State Government agrees to review its rejections of these measures.
“The sad reality is that nurses and midwives feel they are left with little choice but to take industrial action to get the State Government to sit up and take notice of the patient safety implications that are significantly at risk,” she said.
“Any industrial action SA nurses and midwives undertake will of course not impact on patient safety — ensuring the community can continue to access to safe, quality care is the primary reason our members have decided to take this action.”
She said staff would raise awareness and bring community attention to the issue by wearing purple, handing out printed information and holding rally-type events.
To minimise the impact on patients and maintain safety, rallies would be held within staff handover time when there are usually twice as many people working as one shift finishes and another begins.
The union says the rejected measures fall into three areas:
Safe staffing — because for every extra patient in a nurse’s care there is a 12 per cent increase in patient deaths.
A strong, future workforce — because SA is set to lose one in two nurses to retirement in the next six years.
Conditions that attract and retain staff to the workforce — because at least 20 per cent of nurses and midwives are already considering leaving their positions amid worsening working conditions and issues of violence and safety.
Nurses and midwives are also seeking a “fair and reasonable wage increase to address rising living costs and ensure the professions remain attractive career options” of 3.5 per cent.
They say this increase is required to remain competitive following a comparative analysis of wages around Australia.
The figure put forward was rejected by the Government but the union has not received a formal counter offer.
Treasurer Rob Lucas says taxpayers cannot afford a 3.5 per cent increase, especially given inflation is at 1.4 per cent.
“Industrial action won’t assist the resolution of this particular dispute because it doesn’t give the budget or me as the Treasurer one extra dollar,” he said.
“What may well help resolve the dispute is sitting down sensibly, seeing if whether or not collaboratively we can work through a sensible enterprise agreement, which gives a reasonable salary increase but also gives greater flexibility to the employer – the Health Department hospitals in this case – for a more efficient use of nurses and nursing resource right across the sector generally, to minimise any waste or excess expenditure that there might be.”
Ms Dabars said the State Government had effectively taken $700 out of the pay packet of every nurse or midwife working in the public hospital system by increasing carparking fees by 20 per cent this year.
She said the staffing model going forward must be not only adequate but also transparent and accountable.
Instead the State Government was seeking to cap staffing levels during the life of the agreement, which would mean no increase even if patient conditions decline.
The Government is also seeking to remove the minimum number of workers for a particular shift, reduce the duration of the night shift and make forced redundancies.
Older nurses and midwives are being actively encouraged to take redundancy packages and make way for younger staff on lower pay levels.