ANMF held a statewide public sector mental health members meeting on Tuesday 30 July to present the ANMF members’ log of claims for the Victorian Mental Health Services 2025–2028 enterprise agreement.
The draft log of claims was endorsed by delegates at the 2024 annual delegates conference. Following this, ANMF (Vic Branch) Council endorsed the claim at its July meeting.
The log of claims is the basis for ANMF’s negotiations for a new enterprise agreement. ANMF will now present the log of claims to the employers’ bargaining representative, Victorian Hospitals’ Industrial Association (VHIA).
The ANMF members’ log of claims contains more than 60 items. Some key claims include:
- Increase wages and allowances to maintain parity with general public sector nurses
- Implementation of relevant improvements that ANMF secured in the general public sector nurses EBA including, increased qualification allowance, change-of-roster allowance, night shift increases, reintroduction of permanent night shift for those who choose to work permanent night shift, increased single day absences without evidence, parental leave improvements, improved transition to retirement, a redeployment allowance, a minimum 47-hour break following night shift before returning to AM/PM shift, and a right-to-disconnect clause.
- Transitioning to a minimum number of nurses working in a community mental health team and a minimum allocation of a senior nurse (RPN 4) in each team.
- Reintroduction of standalone community assessment and treatment teams (CATT) for all mental health services.
- A provision that clearly sets out the minimum staffing profiles for all bed-based services, including Hospital in the Home.
- Expansion of graduate nurse support at each service seven days a week for all acute inpatient units.
Members can read the complete log of claims.
How is the log of claims decided?
A log of claims is essentially a list of pay and conditions improvements that our members want their employer to agree to. The log of claims is based on many things including:
- achievements secured from the general nurses and midwives agreement 2024–2028.
- member consultation including resolutions passed at the annual ANMF delegates conferences
- previous ANMF claims not yet achieved
- workplace disputes, in case new wording in your agreement could resolve or prevent the issue
- the Royal Commission Final Report recommendations and other reforms.
Meetings start
ANMF met with VHIA, the Health and Community Services Union (HACSU), and Victorian Department of Health representatives on 10 July for preliminary discussions on a negotiations timetable. A further meeting was held on 24 July to commence bargaining.
As agreed by all parties, this period of bargaining will be facilitated by former Fair Work Commission commissioner Michelle Bissett who attended the 24 July meeting. At this meeting all parties agreed to make every effort to come to an agreement by the current agreement’s expiry date of 31 December 2024. Once all parties have tabled their respective claims and had an opportunity to provide a preliminary response, we intend to move to meeting twice a week.
Employers’ log of claims
ANMF has received your employers’ EBA claims through their representative, VHIA. There are a series of changes that they want to include in your 2025–2028 EBA. VHIA provided a broad explanation for these claims at our bargaining meeting on 24 July 2024 and have committed to providing proposed draft clauses in support of their claim, for consideration by the unions.
Until we see draft clauses and discussions continue, we will not fully understand the implications of the claims made the employers. Further updates will be provided as negotiations progress. Read your employers’ claims.
We look forward to progressing member claims and will provide updates to members and Job Representatives throughout the negotiations.
Do you know your ANMF Job Rep?
To see who your ANMF Job Rep is, log in to the Member Portal via members.anmfvic.asn.au and then click the ‘My Delegates’ tab under ‘My Membership’.
To nominate as an ANMF Job Rep yourself (we recommend at least two Job Reps per ward) please read the information at anmfvic.asn.au/jobrep or download the nomination form at anmfvic.asn.au/jobrepbrochure.
