NSW health workers are continuing to take strike action this week. 

Thousands of staff will walk off the job on Thursday to demand a pay rise, unhappy with the  2.5 per cent offer from the state government.

Health Services Union (HSU) members including ambulance, cleaning, allied health, admin, security and catering staff will stop work for up to four hours, saying they have been left with no other option.

The industrial action will include a four-hour stop work meeting from 10am to 2pm at all major metropolitan hospitals and a stop work meeting for two hours at major regional hospitals.

Additionally, HSU paramedics will stop work for a meeting from 7am to 8am to vote on further industrial action.

“Health and hospital workers are sick of mealy-mouthed rhetoric. We don’t need another politician thanking us for being heroes of the pandemic, we need a pay rise,” says NSW HSU secretary Gerard Hayes. 

“When politicians and managers retreated to air-conditioned Zoom meetings, paramedics, ward assistants and security guards exposed themselves to COVID, without a vaccine, and often without masks and protective gear. We did our bit for the community.

“Now as the pandemic subsides, health and hospital workers are being smashed by higher prices and stagnant wages. The rent on a three bedroom home in Sydney surged 11.3 per cent in the last year. And everyone knows mortgage interest rates are set to double.”

A NSW government wage cap means public sector pay increases cannot be any higher than 2.5 per cent.