NSW doctors’ strike shows the way forward for healthcare workers
The latest episode of class conflict in the NSW Healthcare system was as impressive as it was unexpected: a three-day strike carried out by public hospital doctors represented by the state branch of the Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation (ASMOF). The strike has caused cancellations of non-urgent surgeries, closures of outpatient clinics and hospital wards to be staffed at the bare minimum as junior doctors and supporters, among whom were nurses, midwives and patients, held several angry rallies outside hospitals, the Department of Health and Premier Chris Minns’ office in Kogarah. More than 5,000 doctors took part from 32 sites across the state.
The Minns Labor government was voted into power just over two years ago. It inherited a healthcare system with a workforce recovering from the trauma and disruption of the pandemic and working for pay well below our interstate colleagues due to years of wage suppression. Minns and his health minister Ryan Park have since presented insulting offers to hospital workforces that entrench us as the lowest paid nurses, midwives and doctors in the country. For doctors, the government is trying to wind back existing protections against exploitative rostering and deployment practices. This ensures that staffing shortages, overwork and burnout will remain unaddressed as healthcare workers pack up and leave to work in states and cities with lower rents, better conditions and higher pay.
The government employed similar anti-strike tactics to those used against nurses and midwives during our industrial action campaigns in recent years. They issued orders through the Industrial Relations Commission banning the strike from taking place, they threatened the involvement of the healthcare regulatory bodies to punish doctors who take part and spread lies in the press in an attempt to temper significant public support—including an egregious untruth that nearly 500 patients had their chemotherapy appointments cancelled (they have since retracted this statement).
This was the first strike action undertaken by doctors in NSW since 1997, when junior doctors supported by the Australian Medical Association undertook a week of industrial action in protest against cuts to the numbers of specialty training positions. With a handful of exceptions (such as the British Medical Association strikes in the UK), junior doctors are not necessarily known for their industrial militancy. ASMOF’s recent reorientation towards industrial action is a welcome break from this tendency. While it remains to be seen how they will follow this action up, beginning the campaign with a three-day strike is an admirable move and shows some understanding of what will be necessary to defend the conditions that they have and win the pay they deserve.
The public sector strikes of the nurses and midwives union, the NSWNMA, never extend beyond 24 hours. While these are no doubt disruptive, the state can wait them out and plan around them. One 24-hour strike every few months can be treated like a Sunday or a public holiday. For a strike to be successful, the employer must conclude that the cost of allowing the campaign to continue (whether that cost be political or economic) is greater than the cost of accepting the campaign’s demands. The employer—particularly an employer as hostile and intransigent as the Minns government—must be forced to concede. He has shown time and time again that he is not interested in good-faith negotiations.
Unfortunately for the nurses and midwives of NSW, the union’s campaign has sunk us further into the quagmire of dead-end negotiations. Just days after the largest single strike day in NSW healthcare history in November last year, the union officials pivoted towards engaging in an arbitration process through the Industrial Relations Court and agreed to conduct no industrial action in the lead up to or during the case. It will not be heard until September—almost a full year from when it was announced. This was passed by a membership vote in which the Association’s leadership declared that they either vote in favour of the case, or we will walk away with nothing and face hundreds of thousands in fines. The spectre of these fines was used to dismiss any suggestion of further disruptive action and the possibility of refusing to pay the fines was never proposed as an option to the membership.
This is the situation we are in; a strategy that bars us from using our only effective weapon, giving the Minns government no reason to fear us; a strategy that accepts an almost year-long delay on even the possibility of any gains; and a strategy that is non-participatory for the union’s members. For those of us who actually work on the hospital floor, demoralisation about this campaign has evolved for some into open hostility towards the union, especially following a small but poorly timed membership fee increase in late November last year.
Meanwhile, ASMOF reported on 3 April that 1,227 doctors had joined the union in the two days after the strike was announced. There is no amount of legal advice, Woolworths vouchers or free CPD (continuing professional development) classes that will build and maintain an active, fighting membership. The power of a union will always be in the ability of its members to withdraw their labour. For its tests ahead, ASMOF would do well to remember this.
