A NSW IRC full bench will on Thursday decide public sector nurses' special case bid for a 35% pay rise, while the state union's employees will get a 5% increase and a one-off "cost of living allowance" under a proposed agreement variation.
The NSW Minns Labor Government is closer to winning passage of controversial Workers Compensation amendments designed to rein in claims for psychological injuries, along with a bill making it easier for unions to inspect employers' digital work systems.
A review of Comcare's legislative framework says there is no choice but to redraft it, and warns AI, WFH and climate change "megatrends" all carry a risk of increasing psychological injury claims, while unions say workers compensation changes in NSW will cut support to those who are close to "catatonic" with such injuries.
The NSW IRC is today livestreaming the first day of a lengthy hearing to determine a work value claim on behalf of public hospital doctors seeking to bridge an alleged 30% pay gap, in what their union says is the biggest case in the tribunal's history.
The NSW Minns Labor Government has introduced what the Business Council claims is the "most interventionist AI and digital regulation" for employers in the country, while separately reviving a bid to lift the workers' compensation total impairment threshold for psychological injuries.
The NSW Parliament has passed stripped-back workers' compensation reforms following serious backlash over a Minns Government plan to increase the whole-person impairment threshold from 15% to 31% for employees suffering psychological injuries.
The NSW Industrial Court has fined the state's nurses and midwives union $130,000 for its "flagrant and unapologetic" flouting of multiple anti-strike orders during pay negotiations with the Minns Government that have since morphed into a major gender undervaluation case.
Psychiatrist staff specialists in NSW public hospitals have won a temporary 10% "stop-gap" attraction and retention allowance, after a State IRC full bench accepted they had established a special case to address an "acute shortage", partly a result of "comparatively low pay", that is driving a reduction in the quality of mental health care.
