The NSW Health Services Union will resume major industrial action from Monday, secretary Gerard Hayes says, despite members narrowly voting in favour of the Minns government’s pay offer.

The HSU has been at loggerheads with Premier Chris Minns since the election over pay, after Hayes accused the new government of dragging their feet over pay negotiations.

In a bid to end a stalemate, Hayes struck a deal which gives the state’s health workers a $3500 flat rate pay rise, meaning lower paid staff such as hospital cleaners receiving a pay bump as high as 8 per cent. That agreement angered some of Hayes members because it means some members will see pay bumps of only about 2.7 per cent.

However on Friday, Hayes said the pay deal had narrowly passed, with 54 per cent of members voting for the offer.

But despite that, the stand-off between the HSU and the government promises to continue after Hayes said members had voted to resume industrial action over salary packaging.

Currently, workers can only claim half the full entitlement, while the rest goes to the government. Before the election, Minns committed to changing that so workers received “100 per cent of the salary packaging benefit”.

But the government has since said that while it “remains committed” to that change, the “first stage” from next July would result in between 60 and 70 per cent of entitlements returned.

On Friday Hayes said members had yet to make a decision on what that industrial action would look like, but insisted it would be “major”.

“It’ll be statewide, it will be every service [and] this won’t stop until such time as this matter is resolved,” he said.

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