BY ANDREW HALL
CANBERRA — Canberra Hospital and community care nurses again protested on March 27 as the stand-off with the ACT Liberal government and the independent health minister Michael Moore continued.
Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) members have rejected the government's 12% pay rise offer three times now, because of the conditions and "reforms" attached to the offer.
The ANF is concerned that there are insufficient funds to attract and retain nurses in health care facilities. To meet the demand on the public health system, nurses are expected to work regular overtime as well as do 15 hour shifts.
Paul Seaman, a registered nurse at Canberra hospital told Green Left Weekly, "The problems Canberra Hospital is facing are similar to what has been happening in the rest of the country. Successive governments have attacked our conditions, and have failed to provide enough funds to meet the public demand."
"The pay offer was just not good enough because it was just playing catch-up. Ten years of being devalued can't be made up with one offer" he said.
As well as the dangerous conditions created by extended shifts, the nurses are concerned about the critical nurse shortage, lack of career progression opportunities, and the impact on the on the public of a public health system in crisis.
The government is trying to force the union to back down and agree to the current deal by pressuring individual nurses to accept the offer immediately and threatening the withdrawal of the $5.8 million budget allocation.
ANF ACT secretary Colleen Duff told Community Radio 2XX on March 27 that "the government offer was trying to obliterate the rights of union members to collectively negotiate their claim under the enterprise bargaining agreement."