Diabetes Victoria nurse educators taking protected industrial action. Photo: Natalie Pestana
Diabetes Victoria nurse educators have accepted an improved offer from their employer and agreed to end their protected industrial action.
Since 27 June, these diabetes nurse educators have been taking protected industrial action to secure, among other things, a decent pay rise after a four-year COVID-related wage freeze.
With the support of the ANMF (Vic Branch), our members have held stop-work rallies, sent emails, been wearing red ANMF campaign T-shirts, using ANMF screen backgrounds on their online meetings and sharing information about the dispute with their consumers and the community.
This followed months of bargaining negotiations between ANMF and Diabetes Victoria that reached a stalemate with the employer initially refusing to budge from a wages offer that would have left some members up to 8 per cent behind their colleagues in the public sector.
It’s never easy to stop work and demand better treatment, but our members felt they had no other option. When their employer continued to stall, the nurses escalated their action to include stoppages that affected Diabetes Victoria’s Helpline, the DESMOND program which provides education and support for people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and the OzDAFNE program which provides education and support for people with type 1 diabetes.
Almost a month to the day since they started their action, on Friday 28 July the nurses accepted a new offer from Diabetes Victoria and agreed to end their protected industrial action.
The new offer that the Diabetes Victoria nurse educators have agreed to includes:
- A wage increase of 4 per cent for 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024, back paid from 1 October 2021.
- Team leader parity: the Diabetes Victoria nurse educator team leader role will be paid on par with the dietitian team leader (backdated to 1 October 2021), with stepped increments introduced for the role going forward.
Members had sought to increase paid parental leave but agreed to maintain the current EBA entitlement of 10 weeks of paid leave.
The improved offer means that Diabetes Victoria diabetes nurse educators will now receive the following hourly rates:
| Nurses | 1 October 2021 | 1 October 2022 | 1 October 2023 | 1 October 2024 |
| +4 per cent | +4 per cent | +4 per cent | +4 per cent | |
| Grade 2 Year 2 (Base rate for calculation of Qual Allowance) | $33.24 | $34.57 | $35.95 | $37.39 |
| Grade 3A Year 1 (Uncredentialed Diabetes Nurse Educator) | $44.13 | $45.90 | $47.74 | $49.65 |
| Grade 3A Year 2 (Uncredentialed Diabetes Nurse Educator) | $44.58 | $46.36 | $48.22 | $50.14 |
| Grade 4B Year 1 (Credentialed Diabetes Nurse Educator) | $50.46 | $52.47 | $54.57 | $56.76 |
| Grade 4B Year 2 (Credentialed Diabetes Nurse Educator) | $51.46 | $53.52 | $55.66 | $57.89 |
| +9 per cent | + 3 per cent | + 3 per cent | + 3 per cent | |
| Grade 5 (Team leader) Years 1-3
equivalent to Dietitian Grade 3, Year 3 |
$54.20 | $55.82 | $57.50 | $59.23 |
| Grade 5 (Team leader) Year 4+
equivalent to Dietitian Grade 3, Year 4 |
$59.31 | $61.09 | $62.92 | $64.91 |
The Branch congratulates our members at Diabetes Victoria for standing their ground and achieving this result.
