Nurses set to receive thousands of dollars after pay equity agreement signed
Hospital nurses will receive tens of thousands of dollars in payouts with a pay equity agreement being signed off.
They will be given lump sums and backpay worth up to $28,000 to bring wages in line with male-dominated fields.
The Government has agreed to fund a $4.4 billion package to settle teachers’ and principals’ agreements.
It comes after an arbitration panel recommended secondary teachers get a 14.5 per cent pay rise spread over three instalments.
Education Minister Jan Tinetti announced today the Government had accepted the recommendation and had offered to increase secondary teachers’ base salaries by 14.5 per cent by December 2024 – close to $700 million more than had been budgeted.
These are necessary pay rises and it stops Teachers losing any more support from frustrated parents (nurses will never lose support because they aren’t seen as glorified babysitters).
This is just basic pay rise increases, this isn’t anything genuinely transformative in Education or Health and by settling before the election, Labour cements into place those votes with substantial back pays looming for most teachers and nurses.
Truly transformative policy like 4 day weeks, free education training in return for bonding, accomodation for teachers and nurses, a teachers aid in every classroom, more hospitals and better nurse patient ratios aren’t included in any of this, just basic pay rises.
To do those things we need a Left wing Government with the courage to tax the rich, currently we don’t have that.
Round of applause for the Unions, they have represented their members well, now we need a Government prepared to make the actual investment to make Education and Health transformative.
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