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Listen "Patient:Staff Ratios and Valuing Our Essential Workers in NSW. Nick Tribbia NSWNMA"
Episode Synopsis
Merran MacLaren and Peter Lammiman ask Nick Tribbia, Delegate at the Blue Mountains Health Branch of the NSW Nurses' and Midwives' Association, about their Patient:Staff Ratio campaign, the value of essential workers, union activism and the things unions need to do to stay effective.
Figures referenced by Nick can be found on Page 19 of the report "The Cumulative Costs of Wages Caps for Essential Service Workers in NSW from the Australia Institute Centre for Future Work".
"Figure 6 illustrates the growing costs for nurses and midwives of long-term wage caps in NSW. Compared to the previous trend in nominal compensation, wages under the pay cap have lagged by a growing margin. After a decade of pay caps, pay for experienced RN/RMs under this policy was $335 per week (or over $17,000 per year) lower in 2021 than if the previous pace of wage increases had been retained. Once again, making matters worse is the fact that those lost earnings accumulate over time into very large sums of foregone income. Figure 7 shows the accumulating path of foregone earnings for a full-time RN/RM under the NSW wage cap policy. For a nurse or midwife working full-time throughout the period covered by the wage caps, cumulative earnings were $80,000 lower over that decade than they would have been under the previous wage trajectory. Continuing pay caps will extend and expand that cumulative loss, forecast to reach $120,000 by 2023-24."
If you'd like to add to the discussion, you can leave an audio comment about our show, which may be added to one of our podcasts.
This episode was first broadcast on Radio Blue Mountains 89.1FM and published as a podcast on 31st March 2023.
Apply to be a guest on our show. Join a union - 1300 486 466 or join online. Join BMUC.
Rights, Rorts and Rants is broadcast from 4pm to 6pm on 89.1FM or can be live streamed from rbm.org.au.
Blue Mountains Unions & Community pays its respect to, and acknowledges, the Darug and Gundungurra First Peoples of the Blue Mountains area and acknowledges this is Aboriginal Land that was never ceded.
Disclaimer: We seek a range of perspectives but that means that views expressed in these podcasts are not necessarily endorsed by the Blue Mountains Unions Council Inc.
Figures referenced by Nick can be found on Page 19 of the report "The Cumulative Costs of Wages Caps for Essential Service Workers in NSW from the Australia Institute Centre for Future Work".
"Figure 6 illustrates the growing costs for nurses and midwives of long-term wage caps in NSW. Compared to the previous trend in nominal compensation, wages under the pay cap have lagged by a growing margin. After a decade of pay caps, pay for experienced RN/RMs under this policy was $335 per week (or over $17,000 per year) lower in 2021 than if the previous pace of wage increases had been retained. Once again, making matters worse is the fact that those lost earnings accumulate over time into very large sums of foregone income. Figure 7 shows the accumulating path of foregone earnings for a full-time RN/RM under the NSW wage cap policy. For a nurse or midwife working full-time throughout the period covered by the wage caps, cumulative earnings were $80,000 lower over that decade than they would have been under the previous wage trajectory. Continuing pay caps will extend and expand that cumulative loss, forecast to reach $120,000 by 2023-24."
If you'd like to add to the discussion, you can leave an audio comment about our show, which may be added to one of our podcasts.
This episode was first broadcast on Radio Blue Mountains 89.1FM and published as a podcast on 31st March 2023.
Apply to be a guest on our show. Join a union - 1300 486 466 or join online. Join BMUC.
Rights, Rorts and Rants is broadcast from 4pm to 6pm on 89.1FM or can be live streamed from rbm.org.au.
Blue Mountains Unions & Community pays its respect to, and acknowledges, the Darug and Gundungurra First Peoples of the Blue Mountains area and acknowledges this is Aboriginal Land that was never ceded.
Disclaimer: We seek a range of perspectives but that means that views expressed in these podcasts are not necessarily endorsed by the Blue Mountains Unions Council Inc.
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