31 January 2019

Nurses and Midwives Industrial Action Continues

Today the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation and other unions met with the Premier Will Hodgman and Treasurer Peter Gutwein hoping to break the impasse of negotiations for a public sector pay rise and an improvement in the offer for Nurses and Midwives. Although ANMF welcomed the opportunity for a face-to-face meeting no new offer was provided.

The Treasurer stated that there has been a considerable decrease in budgeted surplus, and that a 2% wage rise was all that could be afforded by the government unless productivities could be found.   However, as noted by Andrew Brakey, ANMF Executive Director, “prior to Christmas ANMF presented a productivity paper that outlined how the 15 million currently spent on overtime and agency staff within the Tasmanian Health System could be decreased through implementation of several claims put forward by ANMF members.  This seems to have been completely ignored.”

The Premier and Treasurer have agreed to meet again in the next two weeks to continue discussions, but they provided no assurances that any offer would be made.  Andrew Brakey advised that “as no agreement has been reached, or formal offer tabled, industrial action that members have determined to take will continue commencing as of 7 February 2019.  Theatres across the state will run 2 hour stop work meetings and other areas will run a 1 hour stop work between 1430-1530 hours. ANMF members apologies to the public for any inconvenience that this may cause but want people to understand that this is about having a nursing workforce in the future to take care of Tasmanians and to have midwives to deliver the next generation”.

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Media contact:
Andrew Brakey, Executive Director
Mobile: 0427 385 501
Email: andrew.brakey@anmftas.org.au