Members have received Healthscope’s proposed enterprise agreement to review in advance of the ballot on the Agreement which opens on Friday, 21 November.
Nursing and midwifery employees will have an opportunity to cast an anonymous electronic vote on whether to support or reject the proposed Agreement. ANMF encourages every member to cast a vote and have your say.
ANMF (Vic Branch) urges you to VOTE NO to reject the proposed Agreement and continue your protected industrial action.
Why vote no?
Reasons to vote NO are as follows:
1. The proposed enterprise agreement does not achieve public sector wage parity until July 2027, and then only for five months.
Without any context, the wage offer may look reasonable, however the starting point for Healthscope wages is approx. 8.5% below the public sector, with the gap even larger for some classifications.
Under Healthscope’s wage offer, the majority of classifications will remain approx. 3.5% behind the public sector between July 2025 and January 2026, and approx. 2.5% behind the public sector until July 2027. These gaps will be substantially more for Grade 1 and Grade 2 Yrs 1-4.
The rates will reach parity between July and November 2027 but will fall behind again when most public sector nurses and midwives receive a 9.4% increase at that time.
All other comparable private acute providers have already achieved parity with the public sector, and by the end of their Agreements, will be slightly above.
2. The Agreement’s nominal expiry date of 31 March 2028 is too late. The agreement does not only deliver public sector parity late, it also delays the next round of bargaining where parity might be reinstated.
Members at St Vincent’s Private, Epworth and St John of God will all be bargaining to maintain public sector parity in their next agreements (i.e. attempting to match the 9.4% increase) from as early as mid-2027.
While ANMF has secured a new entitlement in the proposed Agreement whereby negotiations for the next agreement will commence three months before the nominal expiry date – this still leaves Healthscope nurses and midwives waiting until 31 December 2027 to commence negotiations to maintain parity with public sector rates.
3. Key staffing claims have not been agreed. ANMF members sought that minimum staffing standards be contained in the Agreement and that nurses and midwives in charge would not have a patient allocation. Healthscope have agreed that, from 1 July 2026, After Hours Coordinators and NUMs (working the AM shifts) will not have a patient allocation, and that the nurse in charge overnight at the Geelong Clinic (where occupancy is 40 or more) will not have a patient allocation. This leaves most of ANMF members’ staffing claims unmet.
4. The proposed enterprise agreement contains the unfair salary packaging clause which provides that the majority of any salary packaging benefit that Healthscope nurses and midwives take up, will remain with your employer.
All other Victorian nurses and midwives working for not-for-profit private providers receive rates that are comparable with the public sector (or better) throughout the life of their agreements and receive the full benefit of salary packaging. The Healthscope proposal is the first of its kind in Victoria, and if agreed, would set a concerning precedent for the industry.
Is there anything positive in the proposed Agreement?
Yes, the ANMF (Vic Branch) has secured some good improvements to the terms and conditions in the proposed agreement. These include:
- Improvement to the definition of experience which will achieve quicker incremental progression for part time staff.
- Improvements in minimum classification: Nurse Educators, Outreach Nurses and Floor Coordinators and ECT Coordinators will all be classified at a minimum Grade 4B and nurses/midwives who act as a Team Leader (but is not an appointed ANUM), will be paid at the appropriate ANUM rate for the shift.
- Inclusion of a clause to govern the redeployment of nurses and midwives between wards.
- One day (7.6 hours) dedicated administration/management time for NUM/MUMs of wards of at least 20 beds. Employees with employer allocated portfolio work or administrative duties will have reasonable paid time to undertake such responsibilities (including rostering).
- Introduction of a new Nursing and Midwifery Agreement Implementation and Staffing Committee which will consider workload/staffing issues and provide a consultative mechanism for resolution of these.
- Employees rostered on call for the purposes of recall to staff an emergency in a Catheter Laboratory or Operating Theatre (including anaesthetics and recovery) will not be required to work overtime or be otherwise recalled, other than for an emergency or complication during that on-call period.
- Improvements to parental leave entitlements: an increase in paid parental leave to 14 weeks for primary carers (to be phased in with 13 weeks on approval and 14 weeks from 1 July 2026) and 2 weeks for non-primary carer. Provision that a subsequent period of parental leave (where there has been a return to work on temporary reduced hours) will be paid based on the contracted hours prior to the initial parental leave, not on the temporarily reduced worked hours. Provision that an employee who suffers a miscarriage, who would otherwise have given birth to the child had the pregnancy run to full-term, shall be entitled to one week’s leave if the miscarriage occurs between 12 and 20 weeks gestation.
- A sixth week of annual leave to employees who perform weekend on-call duty on 10 weekends per annum, from 1 July 2026.
- An increase to paid compassionate leave to three days per occasion
- Long service leave: improvement to the definition of continuous service so that eligible periods of unpaid leave count as service. Casual loading to be paid to casual employees taking long service leave.
- 20 days of paid family and domestic violence leave for full-time and part-time employees (such leave attracting penalties and allowances) and 10 days for casual employees for days they were rostered to work.
- Study leave for approved courses of study will not be limited to post-graduate study. Requests will be made at least 6 weeks in advance and responded to within 14 days, and will not be unreasonably refused. Introduction of a group clinical supervision entitlement for mental health nurses.
- Introduction of a new Sunday night shift rate (an initial 12.5% more than general night shift allowance) and a new weekend on call allowance rate (paid at an additional 10%) for weekend/public holiday (defined as periods where the majority of on call hours are on a weekend or public holiday).
- Accident make up pay clause to reflect “Regular Earnings” or PIAWE rather than “ordinary pay”, up to 39 weeks.
- Union delegates clause allowing for 5 days of paid leave for initial training and two days in subsequent years
Despite these improvements, due to the significance of the matters that have not been agreed, ANMF recommends that you VOTE NO.
What happens if we vote NO to the proposed Agreement?
If you vote yes to approve this agreement, it will operate until 31 March 2028. To give us the opportunity to address the deficiencies in the proposed Agreement and get Healthscope back to the negotiating table, we recommend you VOTE NO.
If the Agreement is voted down, ANMF will seek to recommence negotiations with Healthscope as soon as possible. Good faith bargaining requirements continue to apply to all bargaining representatives. Negotiating parties’ positions can change until an agreement is concluded. Where this occurs, Healthscope is not obliged to maintain its current offer, however it would be particularly concerning if key aspects of the proposal were withdrawn.
ANMF (Vic Branch) will, as has been the case throughout negotiations, be seeking to achieve an Agreement acceptable to members as soon as possible.
Got a campaign question?
If you have any questions, please contact your local Job Representative or the ANMF Industrial Relations Organiser responsible for your site (see below) via records@anmfvic.asn.au. Please quote case ID 1083422 in the subject line.
Dorset Rehabilitation Centre – Camilla Ablitt-Collins
Geelong Clinic – Christian Sanderson
Holmesglen Private Hospital – Stephanie Bligh
John Fawkner Hospital – Lachlan Schacht
Knox Private Hospital – Linda Elliott
La Trobe Private Hospital – Julie Wearing-Smith
Melbourne Private Hospital – Lyndal Alston
Northpark Private Hospital – Julie Wearing-Smith
Ringwood Private Hospital – Linda Elliott
The Melbourne Clinic Private Hospital – Linda Elliott
Victoria Clinic Private Hospital – Narelle Hayes
Victorian Rehabilitation Centre – Jenna Bell
