Health workers prepare 24-hour strike

BY BILL MASON

BRISBANE — Public hospitals in Queensland face another 24-hour strike within weeks unless the state government boosts its wages offer to non-nursing staff. Union delegates for Queensland Health employees on August 15 resolved to escalate industrial action in their bid for better pay and conditions, declaring August 29 a day for mass action.

The resolution, to be voted on by union members shortly, intensifies pressure on a hospital system rocked by months of rolling stoppages, bed closures and work bans.

Federal workplace relations minister Tony Abbott has been urging Queensland Premier Peter Beattie to resurrect his idea of secret ballots among public sector unions to resolve the state's enterprise bargaining crisis.

Beattie had proposed a month ago to have the Queensland Electoral Commission hold a secret ballot among nurses on the government's pay offer, but backed down after widespread condemnation. Abbott is trying to push legislation through federal parliament which would make secret ballots a precondition to strike action.

Meanwhile, the state government was in the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission on August 15 trying to head off a planned five-day strike by radiation therapists over pay and conditions claims.

From Green Left Weekly, August 21, 2002.

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From GLW issue 505