The pay deal given to public sector nurses and midwives in NSW on 16 April is an historic defeat and proof of the failure of the arbitration strategy. It is a wake-up call for all trade unionists that this strategy, favoured by the leaders of most unions around the country, is not enough to win the gains workers need to keep up with inflation and stay afloat in the cost-of-living crisis.
Breathless reporting of a “historic” pay rise for NSW nurses and midwives of up to 28 percent obscures a much less impressive reality for most of the workers covered by the Fair Work Commission’s decision. Registered nurses and midwives, who make up the overwhelming majority of this workforce, have in fact only been awarded 16 percent over three years—the lowest pay rise in this decision. And 10 percent of that is a “one-off reset” intended to address not only the increased cost of living but also work values and the historic and significant underpayment of the majority-female workforce.
In practice, registered nurses and midwives will receive a pay rise of 7 percent in the first year, as the 3 percent pre-existing increase will be subtracted from the 10 percent one-off increase. The inflation rate currently stands at 3.7 percent and is expected to reach more than 5 percent in the coming months. So we are looking at possibly less than 2 percent in real terms this year. The remaining 6 percent, to be given in two 3 percent increments over the following two years, could very well mean we will be locked into two more below-inflation pay rises.
Sixteen percent is a fraction of the claim brought to the commission by the union, which was 35 percent over three years. The commission did grant a cribbing allowance for nurses working in patient transport services, but rejected a claim to double the existing sick leave allowance.
The much-quoted 28 percent pay rise over three years applies only to assistants in nursing. These workers currently earn just a shade over the minimum wage, so they are starting from a much lower base than most of the workforce. They are also a much smaller and more transient section, with a significant proportion being nursing students, usually employed for just two or three years while they are studying.
The story is similar for enrolled nurses, who have been awarded an 18 percent increase—they are a very small section of the workforce and are already drastically underpaid. Previous offers had not split increases by categorisation. These higher raises are by no means unwelcome, but it is hard not to speculate that they are a cheap way to get a higher increase into the headlines, while the majority of nurses get a pay rise they will barely notice.
For registered nurses and midwives, this pay deal won’t even restore real wages to the level they were at in 2020, before the state government froze wages in the public sector. If the inflation rate continues to rise this year to 5 percent, as forecast by the Reserve Bank, that will put us a full 6.4 percent behind CPI by 30 June 2026. The following chart breaks this down:
|
|
Wage increases
for NSW public sector Registered Nurses |
Inflation
(Consumer Price Index) |
Wages v CPI,
compared to 30 June 2021 |
|
1 July 2020 to
30 June 2021 |
0.3% (1 July 2021) (index = 100.3) |
3.8% (index = 103.8) |
Wages behind
CPI by 3.5% at 30 June 2021 |
|
2021-22 |
2.04% (1 July 2022) (index = 102.3) |
6.2% (index = 110.2) |
Wages behind
CPI by 7.9% at 30 June 2022 |
|
2022-23 |
2.53% (1 July 2022) (index = 104.9) |
6% (index = 116.8) |
Wages behind
CPI by 11.9% at 30 June 2023 |
|
2023-24 |
4% (1 July 2023) (index = 109.1) |
3.8% (index = 121.3) |
Wages behind
CPI by 12.2% at 30 June 2024 |
|
2024-25 |
3% (1 July 2024) (index = 112.4) |
2.1% (index = 123.8) |
Wages behind
CPI by 11.4% at 30 June 2025 |
|
2025-26 |
3% (1 July 2025) (index = 115.8) Plus 7% awarded April 2026, back paid to 1 July2025 (index = 123.6) |
5% (forecast*) (index = 130) |
Wages behind
CPI by 6.4% at 30 June 2026 |
|
2026-27 |
3% (1 July 2026) (index = 127.4) |
2.9%* (index = 133.8) |
Wages behind
CPI by 6.4% at 30 June 2027 |
|
2027-28 |
3% (1 July 2027) (index = 131.2) |
2.6%* (index = 137.3) |
Wages behind
CPI by 6.1% at 30 June 2028 |
The decision was handed down by commission president Igmar Taylor, who, according to the Australian Financial Review, is paid a base salary of $497,000 per year. He was at great pains to explain that the commission does, in fact, accept the validity of the substantial body of evidence presented by the union outlining the changing value of work in the profession and the gendered nature of the underpayment. As he announced the numbers, however, it became clear that the commission’s main priority was the “fiscal position and outlook of the New South Wales government”, as required under changes introduced by Labor in 2023. Compensating the state’s largest workforce for gendered underpayment comes second to helping the government save money.
Taylor also was at pains to make clear that the eight-month delay with this decision, plus the decision to restrict backpay to just mid-2025, was a consequence of the union “not comply[ing] with the commission’s orders” and taking three days of strike action in September and November 2024, in effect punishing workers for using their industrial power to push for a legitimate and long-overdue pay rise.
This highlights well the role of the commission and bodies like it: to placate workers and give union leaderships the occasional win, while also ensuring that militancy and mass worker involvement in winning gains are minimised.
But mass participation in industrial action under members’ control is exactly what has the potential to win the sort of pay rises we deserve. Far from having too much, this campaign didn’t have enough of that. It was initially fought with large, stage-managed single-day actions, at most twice a month. These were no doubt impressive and, for many participants, myself included, were an inspiring (but brief) display of workers’ power. They were disruptive, but not dramatically more disruptive than a standard Sunday or public holiday. But even these were quickly wound up, the union agreeing to enter the arbitration process on the condition that no further industrial action would be undertaken. The industrial power of the state’s largest workforce was traded for the expertise of lawyers in a bosses’ court that, not surprisingly, delivered us an inadequate outcome.
It will take serious, rather than set-piece, industrial action to win the pay rises workers need—like that taken by nurses in New York earlier this year, which involved 15,000 union members on an indefinite strike that, in some areas, lasted up to six weeks. That strike was primarily defensive, but after committing to the strategy and even voting down a worse compromise proposed by the union leadership, they ended up winning some of their demands regarding enforceable safe staffing.
Single-day actions, or even multi-day actions, will not cut it against the Minns government. If we don’t want to suffer another defeat, we need to start building the networks and infrastructure now for an indefinite strike next time.
