Nurses and midwives fear they could face a pay dispute with the Queensland Government similar to the bitter feud fought by doctors.
The Queensland Nurses Union (QNU) said members had received letters from Queensland Health advising it was looking to simplify a “complex web” on industrial action and certified agreements.
The letters have coincided with a Government advertising campaign promoting changes to pay rates and allowances.
QNU secretary Beth Mohle said the Government’s message was unclear and had caused unrest with its members.
“We’ve just got through the doctors dispute and they’ve seen how damaging that was for relationships and trust within Queensland Health and now there’s a fear that they’re next cab off the rank,” Ms Mohle said.
“The concern that we’ve got about a number that have been flagged with us are ones that are particularly applicable in rural and remote settings.
“It certainly does have the potential to impact upon delivery of health services in those areas because nurses and midwives are the people providing the services there largely.”
Ms Mohle says staff are anxious.
“Now we’ve got an overall guarantee from the Minister that nurses and midwives won’t be disadvantaged, but there still in an incredible amount of concern and distrust on the back of what’s happened in recent times with Queensland Health,” she said.
But Health Minister Lawrence Springborg said award changes would not leave nurses worse off.
“The pay packets of nurses certainly will not be going down, that’s a commitment which has been given to nurses,” he said.
“This is very much about making sure that we reduce red tape and bureaucracy and paperwork, so we have more resources to pay more nurses.
“We have about 4,500 award variations, 24,000 pay combinations and of course all of that paper work, all of that bureaucracy, all of that red tape, is just making their lives so much more complex.
“Nurses say to me they would just like to have a simpler pay slip.
“They can’t understand the spaghetti maze of confusion.”
Mr Springborg described the ad campaign as necessary.
“This is about the public understanding that we’ve got a highly complicated system in Queensland, which is very bureaucratic, with a lot of red tape, because we have very complex awards,” he said.
“We just want to make sure that we have a simpler system where people are paid fairly, paid the same amount, but it’s going to be a far simpler system in the future.”
Source: ABC