Nurses campaign for better deal

By Kim Linden

MELBOURNE -- At a stop-work meeting of 3000 at Dallas Brooks Hall on June 12, Victorian public sector nurses voted unanimously to start industrial action as part of a campaign to improve working conditions and win a long-overdue pay rise.

Nurses voted to close one in five beds on every ward except oncology, haemodialysis, terminations of pregnancies, labour wards, neonatal wards and some wards of the Royal Children's Hospital and Peter McCallum Cancer Institute.

They also agreed to not attend sessions in operating theatres; to ban clerical and administrative duties and referrals for community health nurses and the Royal District Nursing Service; to ban blood collection and other blood bank duties; and to help nurses in any case of victimisation.

The meeting called on the state government to increase nursing positions, to improve work conditions and to grant a 15% pay rise over two years. A further stop-work meeting will be held on June 25.

The nurses are also protesting against the state government's attempt to break down centralised bargaining in order to push nurses into agreements with the hospitals networks management, making it easier for the government to introduce individual contracts.

The government says it will not give nurses an across-the-board pay rise or make any commitment to funding adequate staffing levels. Instead, it wants the ANF to negotiate with the networks, making it harder for the ANF to negotiate an immediate pay rise and harder for the union to obtain funding for improved staff levels.

The ANF estimates that network by network negotiation could take five years.

The public health sector has been hard hit under the Kennett government; 23% of nursing positions have been lost since 1992. Some hospitals have been closed, and there have been dramatic staff reductions in others.

A recent survey by the ANF revealed that many public hospitals do not have the money for basic things such as bandages, drugs and linen.

Workers covered by the Health Services Union of Australia also struck June 4-6 over the contracting out of support services, affecting hospitals in the inner and north-eastern networks.

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