More than 40,000 nurses and midwives will vote for the right to go on strike and close hospital beds in a move to ramp up demands for better pay. It comes as the powerful Victorian nurses’ union seeks substantial wage increases of between 3 and 20 per cent a year for its members in public hospitals and healthcare centres statewide. A log of claims handed to the Andrews government and health employers calls for Victorian wages to rise to the same rates as nurses and midwives in New South Wales. The weekly pay for the median nurse grading in Victoria is $1235 – about 15 per cent less than NSW, an analysis reveals. Nursing unit managers earning up to $1800 a week are 12 per cent worse off.
