Union boss threatens LNP government: deliver big pay rises or face mass rolling strikes

As the Crisafulli government prepares its first budget update, public sector unions are threatening rolling strikes across schools, hospitals and police stations if big pay rises aren’t delivered.

QCU secretary Jaqueline King and ACTU secretary Sally McManus during the 2024 Labour Day march in Brisbane. Picture: NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

Queensland’s top union boss has threatened mass rolling strike ­action at the state’s hospitals, schools and police stations this year if the Liberal National Party government fails to deliver big pay rises across the public service.

Facing its first major test since the October state election, the Crisafulli government will be forced to negotiate new three-year pay deals with the public sector later this month, with existing enterprise bargaining agreements due to expire by mid-year.

Formal negotiations between Queensland’s Nurses and Midwives Union and the Department of Health begin later this week, as the government prepares to hand down its post-election budget update.

Treasurer David Janetzki, who will deliver the budget update next week, has already flagged a downgrade of the state’s bottom line after inheriting purported $20bn-plus blowouts in the cost of major projects under the former Palaszczuk-Miles Labor government.

Queensland Treasurer David Janetzki.

Unions for nurses, police and teachers are expected to seek significant pay rises to catch up with steep rises in inflation since their current agreements were struck, arguing it is needed to help with cost-of-living pressures and stop staff from moving to the private sector or interstate.

The Queensland Council of Unions general secretary, Jacqueline King, told The Australian the state had to find money for “fair and decent” pay rises and commit to a central wages policy for all public sector workers.

“The alternative is that Queenslanders will face a year of rolling industrial and strike action across hospitals, schools, police and other services which both Victoria and NSW experienced in 2024 to secure wage rises,” she said. “We need to stop the churn of key staff going interstate and to the private sector and to ensure the government delivers on providing quality services to all Queenslanders, no matter where they live.”

The former Labor government’s wage policy, set in its June 2024 budget, allowed for a minimum annual wage increase of 2.5 per cent for Queensland’s nurses, whose agreement is the first to expire in March and the only new EBA to fall within the current financial year.

It is understood the Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union will possibly push for a doubling of the budgeted increase in order to keep pace with inflation.

Every percentage point salary rise above the budgeted 2.5 per cent will cost taxpayers an extra $352m a year.

Agreements for the police and teachers expire at the end of June, with the rest of the public service to follow late in the year and early 2026.

Another “key ask” during ­negotiations will be for more housing and incentive payments for those working in regional and rural areas and to increase parental leave entitlements for public sector workers.

Ms King said while Queensland public sector workers were already among the best paid in the country, it was “vital” the government continued to outpace other states on wages or risk losing workers. “A key test for the new LNP government is how well they reward and incentivise public sector workers to remain in Queensland,” she said. “The government needs to be able to pay for the services that Queenslanders expect and voted for.”

Nurses and Midwives Union state secretary Sarah Beaman said she could not comment on the specific pay rises sought by her members but said if a deal was not struck by March, strike action was possible. “Queensland nurses and midwives will continue to push the LNP government to keep to its commitment to nation-leading wages and conditions,’’ she said. “We remain committed to securing these improvements as the only nursing and midwifery union present at the negotiating table.

“Should an agreement not be secured before March, protected industrial action remains a valid option for members to pursue.”

Ms Beaman said Victorian nurses and midwives had last year negotiated pay rises totalling 28.4 per cent over four years and the Crisafulli government needed to deliver an agreement that ­ensued Queensland was “well placed to recruit staff to work in Queensland”.

During the state election campaign, Mr Crisafulli pledged to hire an extra 34,200 health workers by 2032 and find 1600 more police recruits by 2028 and said wages and conditions had to be good enough to “attract and retain the best”.

Last October, The Australian revealed that Queensland’s public service wage bill had exploded by more than 75 per cent in the near decade that Labor held office. Budget data showed that from the first financial year of the Palaszczuk government in 2015-16 to last year’s state budget, the cost of employee expense had risen from $19.96bn to $35.22bn which accompanied an increase of 57,000 full-time positions to a total of 266,999 public servants.

In a statement, a spokesman for the Crisafulli government confirmed the government was able to begin negotiations and was aware of the cost-of-living pressures. “Our commitment is to respectfully engage in EBA discussions with these frontline workers, which we will do over coming months,” the statement said.