A rank-and-file ticket, Time for a Handover, will challenge the NSW Nurses and Midwives Union (NSWNM) leadership in the elections, which are due during September and October.
Elections take place every four years but there has been no contest for over a decade and 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”.
She said many members are unhappy with the leadership’s decision to stop industrial action to win better wages and conditions and go to the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC).
“The NSWNMA leadership’s decision to stop the protected strike action and run a wage case in the NSW IRC was always unlikely to lead to major improvements to members’ pay and conditions. No matter how compelling the union’s evidence was, the IRC was going to comply with the state 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 between 16-28%, with Assistants in Nursing, who make up around 4% of the workforce receiving a 28% pay rise over four years.
However, critics say the decision fails to deal with the 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, after it had said it would cease it, by extending the life of the agreement to 2028.
“Nurses and midwives have been prohibited from taking industrial action on pay until 2028. This means they will remain some of the lowest paid in the country — in the state with the highest cost of living.
“NSW Labor faces an election in nine months [March 2027] and now the IRC has extended the life of our enterprise agreement, the government thinks that our wages won’t be a discussion. However, it’s got that wrong.”
“We should not have stopped taking strike action until we had our reasonable demands of pay parity with Queensland and Victoria met, if not exceeded.”
Morris is running for the General Secretary position 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.
Following that difficult period, nurses and midwives felt burnt out and angry. “Violence and bed block kept getting worse, maternity and mental health services were being slashed, and it frustrated me that the union was not fighting for them,” Morris said.
Time for a Handover is campaigning to make the union leadership accountable to the membership. Morris said that means being “led by the people who do the work”, that the union remains independent of all political parties and puts energy into strengthening its branches.
Morris said the ticket is also focused on workplace health and safety. “According to the NSWNMA’s Occupational Violence Report, over 90% of nurses and midwives working in public hospitals have seen or experienced violence in the last six months. Yet, the report says that more than 70% of nurses or midwives don’t believe anything will be done by their employer if it’s reported.
“Nurses and midwives working in regional remote areas have felt forgotten for too long. There are hospitals that 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. We need more organisers on the ground.”
Morris said NSWNMA needs to take a stand on these issues “no matter which party is in government”.
“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.]