After advocacy by ANMF (Vic Branch), Goulburn Valley Health has implemented a payroll process that allows nurses and midwives who work weekends to accrue the sixth week of annual leave in accordance with clause 57.1 of the public sector EBA.
This clause specifies that full-time nursing and midwifery staff are entitled to accrue an additional 3.8 hours of annual leave per week in which ordinary hours are worked on a weekend, up to a maximum of 38 hours per anniversary year. Part-time staff accrue a proportion of 3.8 hours, depending on the number of hours worked in the relevant week.
Previously Goulburn Valley Health had chosen to apply this entitlement progressively across the employee’s anniversary year, as an averaged accrual, instead of applying the hours as they were actually accrued.
For example, a full-time employee who regularly worked weekends would accrue the 38 hours of additional leave over the year as an average. At the end of the anniversary year, Payroll Services would conduct an audit to ensure the correct amount of leave had been accrued.
This approach could leave members open to potentially losing leave (or going into negative) if the end-of-year audit revealed they had not worked the full 10 weekend shifts, for example. It could also disadvantage members who had worked all 10 weekend shifts in the first quarter or half of the year as they would only have access to half of their entitlement even when they had accrued the full entitlement.
It’s a small distinction but it means a lot. ANMF (Vic Branch) thanks and congratulates the Job Reps and members who brought this matter to our attention and helped advocate for change.
