WA's nurses and midwives have reluctantly concluded their long-running battle with the state government over pay and conditions, with union members voting to accept one of two offers put to them. It's the last wage deal that will fall under the government's blanket public-sector wage policy, which was abandoned last month.
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00:00 Scenes like this emblematic of the battle between WA's nurses union and the state
00:08 government, which boiled for almost two years.
00:12 5% is what the Australian Nursing Federation demanded.
00:16 But a blanket public sector wages policy meant the government wouldn't budge above a 3%
00:21 rise or $60 a week, whichever was higher.
00:25 Today union members voted to accept that deal.
00:30 I completely acknowledge and support the nurses and midwives.
00:34 We are worth so much more than what we've been given.
00:37 However, we couldn't do any more in this negotiation and I had to bring it to an end.
00:41 The deal comes with a bonus allowance, which means pay rises will be higher than the 3%
00:47 on paper.
00:48 Nurses and midwives at the lowest salary levels will effectively receive a 5.06% pay rise
00:54 backdated to October last year.
00:57 Nurses in the mid-salary range will get a 4.21% pay bump.
01:01 The highest paid will get 3.67%.
01:05 The EBA will also mean nurse to patient ratios currently only in place at Perth Children's
01:10 Hospital's emergency department will become enforceable across the state.
01:16 We're now concentrating on the future.
01:18 We've got a lot of work ahead of us in implementing nurse and midwife to patient ratios.
01:23 We're looking at that for patient safety to ease the workloads of the nurses and midwives
01:26 in WA Health.
01:28 The ANF's deal marks the end of the McGowan-era one-size-fits-all public sector wages policy
01:35 with the Cook government opting to return to enterprise bargaining.
01:39 We welcome the fact that government's moving into a more flexible policy that allows unions
01:43 to bargain on merit and look at wages and conditions that probably reflect the value
01:49 of public sector work.
01:50 The new wages policy will be put to the test later this year against the backdrop of a
01:55 state election in March 2025.
01:58 [BLANK_AUDIO]