Nurses fight pay injustice

BY KAMALA EMANUEL 

HOBART — Four hundred nurses rallied on the Parliament House lawns
on May 25 to protest the failure of the state Labor government to live
up to an enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) under which all nurses with
post-graduate qualifications were to have received a 4% allowance.

Rally chairperson, Australian Nurses Federation (ANF) state president
Lorraine Bailey, explained how post-graduate courses in specialty areas
(such as midwifery and emergency care) had been gradually moved from hospital-based
to university-based courses over the last three years. This was achieved
after extensive lobbying by nurses.

However, nurses who obtained their qualifications in hospital-based
courses are not receiving recognition of these qualifications in the form
of the 4% post-graduate certificate allowance. This is inconsistent with
the position taken by the Nursing Board of Tasmania, the regulatory body
for all nurses, which clearly states that qualifications attained in hospital-based
courses are to be treated equally to equivalent qualifications achieved
in university-based courses.

ANF state secretary Neroli Ellis told the rally: “We are making a stand
for the community... Unsafe staffing levels mean we can't provide the care
that we want to.”

Ellis explained that there were 1300 fewer nurses in Tasmania now than
there were 10 years ago. Those who are left were facing “burn out” from
a regular double shifts. However, when nurses took minimal industrial action
in recent weeks, holding a series of stop-work meetings, the government
responded by cutting off negotiations with the ANF.

Ellis told Green Left Weekly that nurses were not intimidated
by government stone-walling, and were planning more action in the coming
weeks.

Other speakers at the rally were Katherine McCarr, of the Tasmanian
branch of the Australian College of Midwives, Leanne McDougall, nursing
organiser for the Health and Community Services Union, state Liberal leader
Bob Cheek, Greens parliamentarian Peg Putt, and Dr Tony Bell, director
of critical care unit of the Royal Hobart Hospital (RHH).

Solidarity messages were sent from the Australian Medical Association,
Dr Brian Walpole, formerly the director of emergency care at the RHH, and
the ANF's Victorian branch.

Though the rally was specifically about pay injustice, most speakers
— with the notable exception of Cheek — complained of the chronic understaffing
in Tasmania's public hospital system that is endangering people's lives.

There have been rumours of patients dying in hospital for lack of adequate
nursing observation. Despite a $9 million surplus in the recently released
state budget, there have been no significant steps taken by the government
to ameliorate this situation.

[Kamala Emanuel is the Socialist Alliance candidate for the state seat
of Bass.]

From Green Left Weekly, June 5, 2002.

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From GLW issue 495