‘Thrown under the bus’: NSW health workers divided over wages deal

A bitter split has emerged in the powerful Health Services Union, with dietitians, psychologists and pharmacists furious that NSW Labor heavyweight and union boss Gerard Hayes has negotiated a deal that will cause them to take a pay cut in real terms.

In a bid to end a stalemate between the HSU and the government, Hayes struck a deal giving the state’s health workers a $3500 flat rate pay rise, which would lead to low paid staff such as hospital cleaners receiving a pay bump as high as 8 per cent.

HSU NSW Secretary Gerard Hayes says allied health workers will only take a pay hit for a short time.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

But allied health staff who are covered by the HSU are outraged, saying Hayes abandoned them and some are now facing pay rises of just 2.7 per cent, well below the 4 per cent that their other health colleagues, such as nurses, are receiving. Inflation sits at 6 per cent.

Hayes struck the pay deal with Health Minister Ryan Park and Industrial Relations Minister Sophie Cotsis this month, just days before rolling industrial action was to start.

The Sydney Morning Herald has been contacted by several allied health workers, who say they feel like they have been “thrown under the bus” by Hayes in his quest to “secure headlines claiming he secured 8 per cent pay rises”.

A NSW Health clinical psychologist, who cannot be identified because they do not have permission to speak publicly, said the pay offer serves to “devalue allied health positions relative to medical and nursing staff within the NSW Health and between NSW public service organisations.”

The pyschologist warned that the $3500 flat deal, which members are currently voting on, will force “members into disunity and asks them to vote against each other”.

“It asks higher paid staff to sacrifice their own pay rise to fund a greater percentage increase for lower paid staff (e.g. 8.5 per cent for the lowest wages),” the psychologist said.

“It means many allied staff will receive less than 4 per cent – personally I will receive 2.7 per cent, which is less than the former Liberal government was offering.”

A pharmacist, who also contacted the Herald, said that, unlike many of the other HSU workers, “most allied health professions and other professionally salaried workers have few to zero opportunities for paid overtime or penalty rates that might allow us to upscale our income”.

“I want to emphasise that my professional peers and I do not in any way begrudge other workers getting a disproportionately higher pay rise – we absolutely respect and support our lower-paid colleagues and would celebrate their much-deserved gains,” the pharmacist said.

“Collectively, however, we know we are just as deserving of – and in the context of 7 per cent inflation, in need of – at least a 4 per cent pay rise. ”

However, Hayes said that “for a cleaner or a wards person on $50,000 or $60,000, a $3500 improvement to their salary is a life-changing benefit”.

“The proposal currently before members has been carefully designed to give the various parts of the health workforce a decent shot at permanently lifting their take-home pay and must be seen in totality,” Hayes said.

“Allied health and other professional segments of the workforce stand to gain many thousands of dollars in improvements to their take-home pay. With a higher income the benefit of the salary packaging improvements we have won is much more powerful.”

He said the government had also agreed to an “award modernisation process” that would properly recognise skills, productivity and value.

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