Nurses are furious at construction workers and Queensland Premier Steven Miles after a powerful union won a wide range of new benefits for its members.
Professional Nurses Association president Kara Thomas said the state had ignored chronic staffing issues in Queensland’s nursing sector in lieu of the new deal negotiated with the CFMEU.
Ms Thomas criticized the “crazy” priorities of Mr Miles, who announced the Industry Conditions Best Practices policy on Wednesday, while “babies are dying”.
Under the new state policy, construction workers receive double time when it rains and an extra $1,000 a week for working on a project 30 miles or more from the employer’s address.
Mrs. Thomas said A current issue She was “really upset” that the state continued to ignore nurses, even after one in five of them had quit since the pandemic.
Professional Nurses Association president Kara Thomas criticized new deal for Queensland construction workers
Premier Steven Miles announced the best practice industry conditions policy on Wednesday, which included a number of benefits for construction workers.
“We have nurses in Queensland working in crisis conditions… We can barely get pay rises in line with inflation and the cost of living,” Ms Thomas said.
“We literally have people dying, nurses leaving in droves, and the investment goes toward people making profits that are almost what we earn in an entire week.”
Ms Thomas said Queensland was paying construction workers for what was considered standard travel for most other industries.
However, Miles undermined his reasoning by claiming that other industries, such as teachers and frontline workers, were also well served under their bargaining agreements.
“If you compare their conditions with those of similar workers in any other state and territory, you will recognize that we have some of the best pay and conditions for all our frontline staff,” Mr Miles said.
‘Our nurses, our teachers, our both, have one of the best conditions in the country.
“That’s not something we’re ashamed of, it’s something we’re very proud of.”
Under the new deal for construction workers, the pay rises will increase the pay packages of crane operators over 700 tonnes to $2,394 per week and fourth-year adult electrical apprentices to approximately $44 per hour or $1,585. per week.
Those salaries are the first year of four successive 5 percent pay increases across the board.
Added to the assured wage increases are countless loading payments and subsidies, such as the 300 percent loading for working on and between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day or Good Friday and Easter Monday.
A “picnic day” will be held on the first Monday in December; Anyone who has to work on the day of the picnic receives double and a half wages.
The major Brisbane Cross River Rail construction site was shut down after a man had to fight for his life following a 12-metre fall from scaffolding while working on the site in July.
Since the incident, construction workers in the state have held massive protests.
In the wake of Annastacia Palaszczuk’s tumultuous resignation in December, The Courier-Mail reported that Miles was finally given the nod after a deal between union power brokers.
Like all states and territories, Queensland businesses and agencies are struggling to get professionals on site for their projects.
Additionally, the Queensland government is caught in an ongoing debate over what to build for the 2032 Olympics.
Despite the demands of the public and private sectors, Mother Nature will undoubtedly influence these new construction wage rates.
The new rules dictate that when conditions reach 35C, or 29C and 75 per cent humidity, in south-east Queensland, work must cease.
Employees who must work in the rain will receive double pay “for all work performed in the rain and such pay will continue until they stop working.”
‘When employees are in the sheds because it has rained, or at starting time, morning tea time or lunch time and it is raining, they will not be required to go to work in a dry area or be transferred to other. site unless: it stops raining, a covered walkway has been provided, sheds are covered and employees can reach the dry area without going through the rain; or adequate protection is provided,” the new agreement states.
“We are paying what it costs to get workers to do the projects Queensland needs,” Mr Miles said.
Miles defended the new construction worker policy despite protests from frontline workers.
One in five nurses have quit since the pandemic and the industry faces chronic understaffing issues
NSW Master Builders Association chief executive Brian Seidler said the deal did not include guarantees of increased productivity.
“The sad thing is that we haven’t gotten any productivity gains,” he told ACA.
‘Nothing has been measured. In fact, I don’t think governments have asked for any productivity compensation.”
Master Builders Queensland chief executive Paul Bidwell told The Courier-Mail that criticism of the Industry Conditions Best Practice policy was not about shortcutting safety and undermining workers’ rights.
‘It’s about ‘can we move forward and build’?’ he said.
“Because if we don’t do it, we’re not going to deliver all these houses plus the other projects that are needed.”
Large projects managed by private construction companies in southeast Queensland have been the scene of multiple deaths in recent months.
Surveyor Brad Arnold, 56, was crushed to death by a truck at Victoria Point, near Brisbane, in September.
“This tragic event serves as a powerful reminder of the risks we face daily in the construction industry,” said a fundraiser for Mr. Arnold.
Days later, apprentice Tyler Whitton, 17, fell down a hole at a Brisbane workplace and later died in hospital.
Daniel Sa’u, 29, died showing “signs of heat stress”, the CFMEU said, after leaving work on the major Cross River Rail project in Brisbane’s south in December.