Victorian hospital workers strike

By Seetal Dodd

MELBOURNE -- Workers at Austin, Royal Talbot and Heidelberg Repatriation hospitals started a campaign of industrial action on September 6 with a 24-hour strike. Work bans and other action were also set in place.

The state Liberal and federal Labor governments announced some months ago that the three hospitals would “merge” next July 1, and that eventually there would be only a single hospital, on one site. This plan will destroy hundreds of beds and an estimated 1300 jobs in the northern suburbs.

Unions have been negotiating with both governments over the future of workers at the hospitals. They have been seeking: no forced redundancies and income maintenance for two years, a consultation agreement, an incentive scheme for other hospitals to take excess staff and an equitable redundancy package -- after many years' service, some staff will not receive any redundancy pay-out under current arrangements. Negotiations have broken down.

The situation has been aggravated by the state government's decision to begin contracting out some services.

At the Austin Hospital, management said it would agree to most of the workers' demands provided that any agreement didn't extend to workers in engineering, switchboard and the hygiene team -- areas already earmarked for contracting out. Management agreed to salary maintenance for only six months and penalty rate maintenance for three months. Workers quickly rejected this “deal”.

A long, hard fight is expected, but the workers' resolve and morale are high.

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