Mental health nursing members at Austin with ANMF (Vic Branch) mental health nursing officer Jade Chandler and organiser Jessica Mengel
ANMF (Vic Branch) visits to mental health services continue in early November, to talk to members, provide updates on the progress of EBA negotiations, share campaign materials and to answer questions. The Branch will also soon begin visiting Forensicare sites – for dates, see Forensicare campaign update #1.
Throughout October we visited around 13 different public mental health services where the team – including Branch Assistant Secretary Madeleine Harradence and Mental Health Nursing Office Jade Chandler – had many great conversations with members.
These conversations have underscored that members are most keenly interested in claims for achieving parity with the general nurses and midwives agreement – not just on pay but also on entitlements such as extending personal leave to five days without evidence or a stat dec. Other claims that have been generating much interest include:
- The graduate support nurse claim
- Long service leave to be taken in days
- Improved classifications
- Change-of-ward allowance
- Permanent night duty
- Nurse-to-consumer ratios.
As reported in Campaign update #2, ANMF has been progressing all of your claims with the Department of Health and the Victorian Hospitals’ Industrial Association (VHIA) since the first meeting on 31 July. Although the VHIA has at this stage not indicated its support for wage parity with the general nursing outcome, ANMF continues to vigorously pursue wage parity on behalf of our members.
Good progress has been made on many other claims, and with bargaining meetings a couple of times a week we are hopeful of further positive progress over the coming weeks, with the goal of reaching an agreement that is supported by our membership by the nominal expiry date of 31 December 2024.
If you missed us when we visited your site or you otherwise haven’t yet been able to talk to us, save the date for Wednesday 4 December for a statewide EBA members’ meeting, where we’ll provide a further update on bargaining matters and key claims prior to the 31 December 2024 expiry date of the current agreement.
Members can read the complete log of claims via anmfvic.asn.au/mhclaim.
Mental Health Roadshows and Forensicare
Forensicare members’ log of claims has been finalised, served on the employer, and bargaining for the replacement EBA is now occurring concurrently with the public sector mental health services negotiations, with specific Forensicare matters to be dealt with separately.
As mentioned above, the Branch has scheduled visits to Forensicare facilities during November to update members. Look out for an email from us soon with dates for your facility.
There are a few more public mental health sector site visits planned as well:
- Peninsula Mental Health, Inpatient Unit: Thursday 7 November
- Barwon Health, Mental Health, Swanston Centre: Friday 8 November
Update your details
To be eligible to vote in a protected industrial action ballot if that becomes necessary, ANMF members’ details must be up to date and match with their details on the employer-provided list.
Members need to check their surname, first name, middle name, date of birth, work and private email, mobile and postal address. Members whose workplace and contact details don’t match with their ANMF membership details won’t be eligible to vote, which may limit your ability to participate in the campaign.
To check or update your details, visit the member portal.
