St John of God Job Reps Jeamy Lee (front right), Sharon Smith (fourth from left) and Sandra Lawrie (fourth from right, back), with their bargaining delegate colleagues.
With the St John of God Health Care enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) expiring mid-2025, bargaining for a replacement commenced in March. In June, almost 91 cent of St John of God nurses and midwives voted to accept their employer’s EBA offer.
The bargaining process was relatively smooth as well – both compared with other recent private acute negotiations and with previous St John of God EBAs.
Geelong ICU nurse Jeamy Lee attributes this to a new-found sense of unity and connectivity between members at St John of God’s seven Victorian campuses. ‘Previously, I think there was not enough connection between different sites,’ he says. ‘Whereas this time, social media has paved the way for us to be very well connected, and we tackled this EBA as one.’
Berwick-based Healthcare at Home nurse Sharon Smith agrees, adding that the strong involvement from ANMF delegates around the bargaining table was also crucial. ‘The involvement of members in the negotiations, and the transparency around that, made a huge difference,’ she says. ‘We had the ability to present so much evidence to support our case because of the unity across all of the workplaces.’
Ballarat orthopaedic pre-admission nurse Sandra Lawrie also notes that she and other members felt not just heard by St John of God, but respected. ‘They actually listened to us,’ she says. ‘I’ve had people come to me and say: this is the first time we’ve felt we’ve got a voice. Someone is actually hearing what we’re saying, and it’s been acted upon. We’ve actually got a result!’
ANMF Job Reps at the bargaining table
Jeamy, Sharon and Sandra were part of the bargaining committee of Job Reps who joined ANMF staff at the bargaining table for the negotiations; they were, to paraphrase the hit Lin-Manuel Miranda musical Hamilton, in the room where it happened.
Sandra
Sandra, an enrolled nurse who began her training ‘back when it was hospital-based’, has been an ANMF Job Rep since 2020 but was advocating for herself and her colleagues long before that.
‘I was the one at meetings back in the 90s, when our CEO said “all our caregivers” who would put my hand up and say: “Excuse me. We’re nurses. Please call us by our proper title. We’re not just caregivers. Nursing is a profession. Please respect that.”
‘I was told to settle down,’ she deadpans. ‘But I was passionate about it because it’s important to recognise who we are and that we deserve fair and equitable conditions – not just for ourselves but also for our patients.’
Sharon
Sharon knew when she was just three years old that nursing was her destiny. ‘I had quite a horrific accident,’ she explains. ‘I was kicked in the face by a horse! But from that particular moment, I always knew I was going to be nurse.’
Previously a paediatric CNS and a nurse educator, Sharon joined the Healthcare at Home team when she started working at St John of God 12 years ago. She loves the role for its diversity and autonomy, but when she started, the team was under a separate EBA to the one that covered the hospital-based nurses, with provisions that were not comparable. ‘There were lots of things I felt could be improved,’ she says. ‘So I started making inquiries and I became a sort-of contact person.’
This ultimately led to Sharon becoming an ANMF Job Rep. Eventually the Healthcare at Home team joined the hospital EBA – ‘a major accomplishment’ – and have made further gains in the current offer. ‘To get where we’ve got in total has been a massive achievement,’ Sharon says.
Jeamy
Jeamy began his Australian nursing career in 2016, having originally trained in the Philippines. His parents had wanted him to become a doctor but Jeamy quickly realised that ‘nurses do all the badass action’.
Not long after starting at St John of God, Jeamy found himself working permanent night shift on an acute surgical ward with a ratio of 1 to 10. ‘I was an ANMF member ever since I started but I began to get more heavily involved when we started fighting for better ratios on that night shift,’ he explains.
‘We started documenting not having proper breaks, the number of high-acuity patients etc. We fought for our ratio on the night shift, and we improved it to one to eight.’
Having got a taste of how ANMF members working together to improve can their conditions, he became a Job Rep. ‘This recent EBA was the first heavy involvement that I have had in that capacity’, he says. As someone who had originally wanted to be a lawyer, it suited him well. ‘I am a big fan of contracts and an EBA is essentially a contract. Plus, I want to better my working conditions and to be paid enough.’
EBA highlights
All three reps agree that the result of the recent negotiations has been very positive.
For Sharon, getting 3A classification was a personal highlight. ‘We finally got the recognition and remuneration appropriate to the work we do,’ she says. ‘Getting that 3A classification was a massive achievement. I’ve been pushing that for 12 years! But the support from all of the other reps and members, and having all the other sites working together, that was the biggest highlight for me.’
The workload escalation clause is a personal highlight for Sandra. ‘I think that is a phenomenal step forward. There’s a process to work through: if those things are not being addressed or adhered to, we’ve actually got a process that we can follow to rectify those situations.’
The relationship between ANMF and members is Jeamy’s highlight. ‘It’s gone to the next level. Previously, I think many members felt that ANMF is the union, not them. But this EBA I think many more members began to understand that they are the union; that we are the union. That was reflected in ballot participation, too,’ he adds. ‘We reached more than 70 per cent, whereas in previous years I don’t think we even reached half of that. It’s fantastic.’
