Let’s do it again! On Thursday 5 December 12.30pm–4.30pm
In the meantime, please keep applying all Stage 1 bans – wearing of red T shirts, admin bans, talking to patients and families about the campaign and working to rule instead of staying back or working additional hours.
St Vincent’s Private Hospitals nurses and midwives yesterday joined together and took unprecedented action to demonstrate their commitment to improved patient care and safe staffing, with hundreds stopping work for more than two hours as part of an escalation of their protected industrial action campaign.
Members are to be congratulated for standing together, putting quality and safety for patients first and seeking solutions to the current understaffing and high patient workloads at St Vincent’s Private Hospitals.
Every St Vincent’s Private hospital was well represented at the Stop Work despite various efforts to discourage members from attending – including placing security staff at every level of each hospital, increasing members’ patient loads and placing staff at the hospital entrances to ask the names of members as they left to catch buses. Members are reminded that it is your legal right under the Fair Work Act to take protected industrial action in support of your campaign for an improved enterprise agreement.
ANMF will support members who are threatened, intimidated or harassed or who lose pay as a result of taking protected industrial action.
We need to keep the pressure up!
So we plan to do it again on Thursday 5 December, this time 12.30 to 4.30 – 2.5 hours either side of 3pm. Most members will take the 2.5 hours. However, we have made the notice flexible so that some members can take up to 4 hours, to enable those in theatres at Werribee and Kew to take a bit longer than 2.5 hours of time so they can actually stay at the rally and not have to rush back to be inside the protected period.
ANMF will provide posters for the rally early next week; in the meantime we encourage you to download the STOP WORK rally poster [PDF] to put up in your ward or unit: anmfvic.asn.au/stopworkposter
It will be critical in the coming weeks that members continue to stand together as we expand the Protected Industrial Action. Please speak with your colleagues, and if they are members encourage them to come along to the 5 December stop work.
Remember you have access to the hardship fund – it’s easy and quick. As members you will just need your pay slip and a few sentences about why the pay deduction made things tough.
Further meeting with St Vincent’s
ANMF met with representatives from St Vincent’s Private Hospital today, Friday 29 November, to discuss staffing and workloads in particular. They are still adamant that they will not have ratios in the agreement. However, your Job Reps did a great job in outlining the staffing issues from perspective of wards, birth suites and post-natal, recovery, theatres etc. We raised the general issue of in-charge with workloads and inability to get more staff when demand spirals. We also raised the situation of Kew with only two nurses overnight.
They listened and said they would respond next week, but no further meeting is scheduled yet.
Stop work and community rally
Members planning to participate in the STOP WORK rally are urged to register their attendance and book a place on the ANMF bus via the QR code or anmfvic.asn.au/stopwork.
Please note that you are not legally required to advise your NUM/MUM or manager of your participation in the stop work. You can, as a matter of courtesy, let them know and that is usually done in the public sector on the day before or morning of the stop work.
Again, St Vincent’s have had 5 clear days’ notice of the intention to take stop work action and they know approximately how many union members there are across the four campuses. They can prepare for that stop work. Do what is comfortable for you. If you are wearing your red T shirt and are ANMF loud and proud then there is no harm in advising management of your intention ahead of time.
Theatre members are encouraged to delay the start of the afternoon theatre list as agreed in your campus theatres.
Make sure your ward, unit or theatre is represented.
Not working? Members not rostered to work are urged to attend to support your colleagues.
Bring your placards and signs. Wear your red t-shirt. Lunch and drinks provided.
Download the St Vincent’s Private Hospitals STOP WORK rally poster [PDF] for your workplace noticeboard via anmfvic.asn.au/stopworkposter.
Tell health insurers to give private hospitals a fair share – Sign the petition
Private hospitals across Australia have a 41% share of patient hospitalisations and employ around 70,000 nurses and midwives.
Over two-thirds of elective surgery takes place in private hospitals.
But something is not right.
To work in private hospitals, you deserve comparable wages with your public sector colleagues. We know you also want safe staffing levels to support safe patient care.
But in our negotiations, ANMF is constantly told by private hospitals that they don’t have the money because of the contracts they sign with private health insurers don’t pay enough.
Tell the private health insurers that it’s time to pay their fair share to private hospitals so they can pay decent wages and provide safe staffing.
It seems health insurers only care about the profits they reap, not the quality of the care provided for patients (or the working conditions of those who care for them).
Download the STOP WORK rally poster
We need to keep the pressure up!
ANMF will provide posters for the rally early next week; in the meantime we encourage you to download the STOP WORK rally poster [PDF] to put up in your ward or unit: anmfvic.asn.au/stopworkposter
Redeployment issue
ANMF understands that some nurses and midwives have effectively been stood down or forced to take a day of annual leave when you declined to be redeployed from your usual ward to another ward/unit. The ANMF sought urgent legal advice about the actions of the employer. We have commenced an action in the Fair Work Commission in relation to a member at East Melbourne who we believe has been unlawfully stood down.
If you or a colleague is stood down because you have refused to be moved from your home ward to another ward/unit please report the employer action (whether stand down without pay or forced use of paid leave).
Reports can be made through the ANMF Redeployment action form via anmfvic.asn.au/redeployment.
Hardship Fund and reporting pay docking threats or harassment
It is your legal right under the Fair Work Act to take protected industrial action in support of your campaign for an improved enterprise agreement.
‘Protected’ means you cannot be terminated or disciplined for taking industrial action. For protected industrial action items like shutting beds or stopping work, management still have the right to dock pay for the time of the stoppage e.g. if you stop work for two hours then they can deduct two hours pay only.
ANMF will support members who are threatened, intimidated or harassed or who lose pay as a result of taking protected industrial action. Where a member loses income as a result of protected industrial action and is facing hardship, the ANMF (Vic Branch) will support that member financially through our hardship fund.
During the protected industrial action campaign, members have access to two forms to:
- report pay docking threats, intimidation and harassment via anmfvic.asn.au/stvprivreport.
- make a hardship fund application to be supported by your union via anmfvic.asn.au/stvprivhardship.
Please note members will need to upload pay slip evidence of pay docking and the date of pay docking as part of any application.
Follow ANMF on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok
Members are encouraged to follow ANMF on our social media channels. You’ll find campaign information, support from your union colleagues and you’ll be able to support each other.
Find and follow ANMF (Vic Branch) via @anmfvic
Campaign resources
Members are encouraged to use the campaign social media profile picture, Teams screen, Dear patient letter, Nurses and midwives speak out flier, Information for senior nurses and midwives and Social media work ban guidance all available at anmfvic.asn.au/stvprivresources.
Take photos and video of your action
Keep uploading your photos and short videos of members wearing the campaign t-shirts at work or reading their letter to the editor, and with your campaign signs at the upcoming stop work rally so we can share these on ANMF’s social media channels and in our publications. Refer to ANMF’s Social media work-ban guidance on our campaign resources page.
Remember to take your pics or videos holding the camera vertically as these are better for social media reels.
Please don’t email photos or video as the quality will be reduced. Instead upload the original-sized files to our St Vincent’s Private Hospitals Dropbox folder at anmfvic.asn.au/stvsdropbox.
Got a campaign inquiry?
If you need to get in touch with your ANMF Organiser please contact them via records@anmfvic.asn.au.
St Vincent’s Private Hospital, Fitzroy – Mim Harrison (relieving for Mitch Hoover)
St Vincent’s Private Hospital, East Melbourne – Mim Harrison (relieving for Mitch Hoover)
St Vincent’s Private Hospital, Kew – Narelle Hayes
St Vincent’s Private Hospital, Werribee – Mim Harrison (relieving for Mitch Hoover)
