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But on the final day, they said Queensland Health “pulled the rug out from under us”, walking back some conditions that had already been negotiated.
“By the end of the bargaining that we’d undertaken in those three months, there were over 50 items that were principally agreed by nurses and midwives from Queensland Health and the QNMU,” Beaman said.
“Many of those items were actually no cost or low cost.
“What [the government] is proposing to do is remove the protection on a number of policies … there is absolutely no reason for them to remove the protections on these policies.”
Examples of such changes included the removal of protections around parental leave entitlements, flexible work arrangements and the removal of consultation rights.
The union has rejected the LNP’s current offer of an 11 per cent pay increase over three years, insisting it would leave more than 66 per cent of the workforce behind their Victorian counterparts, and as such would break the government’s election promise to deliver nation-leading wages.
They are instead pushing for a 13 per cent increase over the same period.
“If nurses and midwives do not receive nation-leading wages and conditions, they will fall behind for the first time in 15 years,” Beaman said.
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On Monday, Health Minister Tim Nicholls said the government remained at the negotiating table, but criticised the union for rejecting previous offers.
“On the Friday of budget week, after we had completed 36 rounds of negotiations, they were seeking double time for overtime, something that we offered to them on May 23,” Nicholls said.
“We respect their right to take protected industrial action, but we also want to make it abundantly clear that we have negotiated in good faith.”
Beaman said there were “so many caveats” to the government’s offer and called their rhetoric “misleading”.
