Baku, November 13, AZERTAC

Up to 10,000 nurses and midwives are striking in NSW over being the lowest paid in the country, with a labour market expert saying stalled negotiations on part of the state government tells of "a gender issue", according to SBS News.

The nurses and midwives walked off the job for 24 hours on Wednesday morning, with elective surgeries across the state cancelled.

On Tuesday, the NSW government reached a historic agreement with the state's police force for an average wage increase of 26 per cent over four years — making it now the best paid in the country. But the government has failed to bring new money to the table with nurses and midwives.

"It's pretty hard not to reach that conclusion [of a gender issue]," John Buchanan from the University of Sydney Business School told SBS News.

"We can find the money for coercive control of the population, but we can't find the money for the people who care for us when we are most vulnerable."

The NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association (NSWNMA) has been in pay negotiations with the NSW government for eight months — but hasn't progressed from a blanket 10.5 per cent pay rise offered over three years for all NSW public-sector workers.

"We can see the male-dominated unions continuing to have increases to wages while the female-dominated unions like ours are being left behind," NSWNMA general secretary Shaye Candish told SBS News.

"We do believe it's a gendered issue," she said.

Since then, nurses and midwives have been appealing for a one-off pay bump of 15 per cent.

But such a rise would cost billions of dollars and lift wages "well north" of Queensland, Victoria and other states, senior ministers say.

According to the NSWNMA, the top salary for an enrolled nurse in NSW is $68,559 a year. Enrolled nurses in all other states and territories earn above $70,000 a year, with those in the Northern Territory on just over $80,000.

The strike is estimated to force the postponement of 600 to 700 surgeries, according to NSW Health.

Only minimal, life-preserving staffing will be maintained in all public hospitals and health services during the strike, with emergency department wait times expected to blow out.

According to 2023 figures from the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, 88 per cent of employed nurses and midwives in Australia identified as female and 12 per cent as male.