February 29, 2008
Issue
MELBOURNE — Medical scientists and psychologists working in Victorian' s public hospitals who are members of the Health Services Union branch 4 voted on February 27 to take 48 hours of strike action as part of their enterprise bargaining agreement campaign. They will strike across all regional health divisions on March 5-6.
The state Labor government has refused to accept the union's demands for an increase in pay equivalent to nurses, the same operative date of the pay increase (October 1, 2007) and a process for dealing with classification matters and other claims. The government' s offer of a 3.25% annual pay rise with an operative date of March 1 would leave Grade 1 Year 7 scientists $11,344.37 worse off over the life of the agreement.