Unions warn NSW hospitals could be overwhelmed

Re-elected ACTU secretary blasts the Morrison government over the slow vaccine rollout and its refusal to reinstate JobKeeper.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus. Picture: Getty

ACTU secretary Sally McManus has warned NSW hospitals could be overwhelmed by coronavirus cases as she blasted the Morrison Government for the slow pace of the vaccine rollout and its refusal to reinstate JobKeeper.

Ms McManus and ACTU president Michele O’Neil were re-elected unopposed on Tuesday during an online ACTU Congress shortened to 90 minutes due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Ms McManus told delegates that essential workers in Sydney – unable to “isolate because their country needs them to work – are facing a deadly virus every day because they are unvaccinated”.

ACTU president Michele O’Neil. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

She said unvaccinated workers across the health, aged care and disability care sectors had been completely let down by the Federal Government which did not do its job of securing adequate vaccine supplies

“We could have avoided what the rest of the world experienced with hospitals at capacity or being overwhelmed,” she said.

“But this is now a real possibility in Sydney if the virus escapes further afield elsewhere.”

She said millions of workers had either lost their jobs or were scared about losing them.

“They have been let down by the Morrison Government as they stubbornly refuse to reinstate JobKeeper without the unfair carve outs, or to raise JobSeeker.”

Ms O’Neil said NSW was “deep in the midst of a frightening and rampant crisis”.

She said it was not the “politicians or billionaires who carried us through this pandemic, but the working people of Australia”.

She said the unions had fought and won access to proper personal protective equipment and paid pandemic leave; campaigned with others to temporarily double the JobSeeker rate; fought off most of the government’s industrial relations omnibus bill and won a 2.5 per cent increase to the national minimum wage.

During the 90 minute session on Tuesday, congress delegates agreed to increase the rate of fees that affiliated unions pay to the ACTU by about 2 per cent annually over the next three years.

The annual fee paid per member will increase from $7.06 to $7.21 in January 2022, rising to $7.35 in January 2023 and to $7.50 in January 2024.

Policies traditionally debated by the triennial congress over a number of days have been referred to the next ACTU executive meeting in September with a special congress convened at a later as “soon as practical.”