Health workers in New South Wales offered $3500 boost after strike threat

Low-paid health workers can expect a significant boost to their salaries after the NSW government committed to increasing pay packets by $3500.

The agreement struck between the NSW health minister and the Health Services Union on Friday morning came as the union threatened industrial action across the state’s hospitals next week.

The government’s offer to boost health workers’ base salaries by $3500 across the board, rather than a percentage increase, would deliver the sector’s lowest-paid workers the biggest relative boost.

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The deal will not apply to doctors and nurses but covers workers ranging from cleaners to hospital clerks, paramedics and allied health professionals.

HSU state secretary Gerard Hayes said he was asking members who were paid in the $150,000-per-year range to “do me a favour”.

“Help me look after these people who are struggling … I’m asking our membership for some compassion,” he said.

The government had offered all public sector workers a 4 per cent raise, backdated to July 1.

But it recently opened the door to tweaking the offer sector-by-sector as long as the overall cost didn’t change.

HSU members will vote on Monday on whether to accept the $3500 offer and whether to move forward with industrial action.

The union represents more than 90,000 health workers not covered by doctors’ or nurses’ unions.

Hayes said it was an amazing day for those health workers earning about $52,000 a year.

“These are the security officers who get bashed every day, these are the cleaners who kept COVID out of hospitals,” he said.

The battle reached new heights this week when HSU delegates heckled the architect of the government’s 4 per cent offer, Treasurer Daniel Mookhey, as he addressed the union’s annual conference.

The health department had plans in place to deal with industrial action, the government said.

The treasurer this week began weaning the health department off a system that meant half of workers’ tax savings in salary sacrificing went into government hands.

On Friday, it offered to return a 60 per cent share of workers’ tax pie.

The government reaps in $90 million a year from union members’ personal tax savings, with the 60 per cent offer returning $10 a week into workers’ bank accounts.

“It’s not only wrong industrially, it’s wrong morally,” Hayes said.

The union boss wants the government to commit to handing back at least 70 per cent of workers’ tax benefits and has signalled a hard deadline of three years to the end of the tax grab altogether.

The state opposition said disagreements between the government and health workers stemmed from the “huge” pay promises Labor made in the lead-up to the March election.