Register for the meeting
ANMF members employed in the general and aged care public sector, and standalone community health centres, are invited to attend the paid statewide members meeting.
Members at this meeting will consider endorsing the offer after a report from elected officials, asking questions and hearing the answers.
If members endorse the offer, every member will get to vote in the subsequent formal ballot in the coming weeks. See EBA update 23 for more detail about the meeting process via https://anmfvic.asn.au/update23.
Please register for the meeting and have your confirmation email ready to scan on arrival at the venue to ensure a smooth check-in process.
A bus route for Casey Hospital has been added to the bus timetable. Members who have already registered can log back into the member portal and register for the Casey bus. On Tuesday 25 June, a bus route from Portland Base Hospital to the Warrnambool meeting will be added, and Nhill will be added to the Ballarat route.
Meeting details
Date: Wednesday 26 June 2024
Time: 2pm – 3.30pm (doors open from 1.15pm)
Locations: Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre and eight regional satellite venues at Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong, Mildura, Shepparton, Traralgon, Wangaratta and Warrnambool.
Registration and bus bookings: https://anmfvic.asn.au/EBAmeeting4
View the meeting notice, meeting process and paid meeting FAQs: https://anmfvic.asn.au/SWM4notice
View the bus timetable: https://anmfvic.asn.au/bustimetable4
Ensure your ward, unit or workplace is represented.
Wear your red campaign t-shirt (t-shirts also available at the door). Bring your placards and signs.
Stage one protected industrial action remains in place.
I’m a regional rep coming to the Delegates Conference; what should I do?
Depending on where you live, you may want to attend your closest regional meeting and travel to Melbourne afterwards or attend the Melbourne meeting. Speak to your Organiser if you have any concerns.
Summary of the offer
The statewide members meeting on Wednesday 26 June 2024 will consider the Allan Government’s offer reached on the weekend after intensive discussions between the ANMF (Vic Branch) and senior Department of Health and government representatives.
If members endorse the offer, the full draft enterprise agreement will go to a formal ballot of all public sector nurses and midwives employed under the EBA in coming weeks.
The offer provides certainty over wage increase percentages and timings. The wages, penalties and allowances, and improved terms and conditions are designed to address increased casualisation of the workforce, employers’ inability to fill night shift, too much rotation onto night shift, over reliance on redeployment and employers’ inflexibility around requests for flexible work arrangements.
Below are the key improvements.
Wage increases
The offer provides a 28.4% (compounded) wage increase for all classifications by the end of the four-year agreement. It has achieved the top end of the Fair Work Commission’s expert panel’s forecast increase in ANMF’s work value case.
The offer protects the current career structure and maintains relativities between classifications.
A breakdown of the increases and the timing and a classification wages table will be provided at the meeting and sent to members after the meeting.
Additional improved pay rates/classifications
- Registered Undergraduate Student of Nursing (RUSON) and Registered Undergraduate Student of Midwifery (RUSOM) – pay rate to increase from 75% of the graduate rate to 81.5%.
- A midwife who is not a registered nurse, but later becomes one, has their experience as a midwife count as experience towards registered nurse increments.
- Introduction of the ability to employ enrolled nursing students under the EBA with the title of Registered Enrolled Nurse Student (RENS).
- Removal of the major/non-major hospital distinction for clinical nurse educators from 1 July 2024. Those clinical nurse educators at the non-major lower entry level will transfer to the first increment of the higher entry level.
- No Lift Co-ordinators will be paid the same rate, regardless of where the historical funding came from. These roles will be graded at QRED2 (the old Grade 4A).
- Registered nurses undertaking midwifery education, as part of their employment, will be employed at a minimum of 0.6 EFT and be paid their substantive rate for all clinical placement/supervised experience that occurs within special care nursery/pre-natal/postnatal/birthing suite (and other placement/experience occurring in paid time).
- For those in standalone community health, the existing Community Stream in the EBA career structure which comprises classifications principally engaged in district nursing, community alcohol and other drugs, domiciliary, ambulatory, outpatients, community health, Hospital in the Home (HITH), Post Acute Care Program (PAC), Hospital Admission Risk Program (HARP), in-reach etc, are now to be read in conjunction with the Clinical, Advance Practice and Research Stream and the Nurse/Midwifery Manager Stream. This removes the barrier to appropriate recognition with respect to advanced practice and management.
- ENs commencing as RNs will commence at Grade 2 year 2 (to address the issue of working outside the public sector before grad year).
- Directors of Nursing at smaller regional hospitals at 7B and 8D will move to 7A and 8C from 1 July 2027.
New allowances
- Change of ward allowance (COW) of $36.10 per shift from 1 June 2024 for permanent staff with a home ward.
- There will be a new Endorsed Midwife allowance payable from 1 June 2025 aligned to the Grad Dip qualification allowance – currently $93.90.
- If a midwife is the sole midwife at a level 3 or 2 maternity service ward, they will be paid a sole midwife allowance of $58.10 per shift from 1 May 2024.
- Midwifery Liaison Officers who work across a region will be classified at CNC D.
- From 1 June 2024 an $85.08 per shift allowance for nurses working in a hyperbaric chamber when they undertake a dive and for on-call shifts to compensate for restrictions in the event they are required to undertake a dive.
Improved allowances and penalties
- Expansion of the change-of-roster allowance to be paid when the 28-day roster is not posted 28 days in advance.
- Improved on-call allowance: currently $72.20; from 17 May 2024 will increase to $108.30 for Saturday, $126.35 on Sunday and $189.53 for a weekend public holiday. Includes the $5.00 in lieu of a telephone allowance, meaning it applies to everyone on-call.
- Non-casual night shift allowance (includes permanent night shift): adjusts per wage increases and from 15 May 2025, Monday to Thursday night shift allowance increases by an additional 12.5%, Friday and Saturday by an additional 25%, and Sunday by an additional 12.5% (using Sunday ‘trial’ base rate).
(Casual night shift allowance rates remain the same across the seven days and as adjusted per wage increases.) - A clarified casual rate for weekend work of 187.5%.
- Confirmation that where employees are recalled to duty more than once, the second and subsequent recalls will be at double time. An employee recalled and subsequently not needed, will be entitled to a minimum three-hour payment.
- In addition to wage increase adjustments, on 1 July 2027 the qualifications allowance will increase by a further 50%. By the end of the agreement it will have increased by 92%. Access to this allowance will be improved and streamlined.
- Unpaid 10-minute breaks during overtime will now be paid.
- A ward shift for caseload model midwives will attract the change of ward allowance.
- Improvements to the Local Health Agency Committee process and the 32% commuted loading review will be undertaken within six months of EBA approval.
- A definition of the work of Nurse Practitioners will ensure that those who are qualified as a Nurse Practitioner, and working as a Nurse Practitioner, will be paid as a Nurse Practitioner.
- When working away from home, employees will be able to access the Australian Tax Office-stipulated rates for accommodation, meals, beverages and travel. This is expanded to include all work, not just work during a natural disaster.
Right to disconnect
- A right to disconnect clause – a new process for employers to follow to fill shifts so that nurses and midwives are not continually contacted to work shifts they are not seeking.
Rosters
- By January 2025 Casterton, Echuca Aged Care, Alexandra District Hospital and Latrobe Regional Hospital move to an 8:8:10 roster.
- Employers will give preference to ongoing forms of employment over casual and fixed-term arrangements wherever possible. Agency employees should not be used to undermine the job security of direct employees and should only be relied on in limited circumstances. Ward budgets should contemplate replacement of staff. There should be sufficiently resourced pool arrangements.
- Confirmation that there is no limit on the number of ‘above ratios’ short shifts.
- The return of permanent night shift (employee choice only). This is part of a number of changes designed to address the difficulty of filling night duty rosters and the expectation.
- Stronger provisions to enable employees to schedule their accrued days off (ADOs) on a date they request.
- A minimum 47-hour break following night shifts before working other shifts (for non-permanent night shift).
- If the 10-hour break between completion of overtime and your next shift would result in commencing ordinary hours with three or fewer hours of your shift remaining, you will be paid for the entire shift without a requirement to attend for duty. Employers cannot adjust the roster to avoid the 10-hour break requirement.
- Employers will provide transport for nurses and midwives following overtime, including the return when their vehicle remains at work (previously only for double shift).
- If you work a shift that was not on the advance roster (e.g. the roster was not issued at the time) the change of roster allowance applies to each shift worked without 28-days’ notice.
- Nurses and midwives will be able to seek a fixed roster (based on your long-standing roster) after your employer decides to change it, closing a loophole.
- The four clear days off clause has been simplified to provide a payment of 3.167 hours pay for each 28-day period in which you do not have four clear days off.
- Those working above 0.8 EFT can access a minimum of two consecutive days off a week.
- Improved access to flexible working arrangements. In recognition of the all-too-common assertion that being available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, is a so-called ‘inherent requirement’ of nurses and midwives, the clause has been amended to make it clear that the assertion of an inherent requirement does not, by itself, mean that this is a reasonable business ground to refuse a request for a flexible working arrangement (FWA). ANMF can support members at any point and take unresolved applications to the Fair Work Commission.
- Those with employer allocated portfolio work or administrative duties will have reasonable paid time to undertake such responsibilities.
Skills mix
- From 1 January 2025, the minimum skills mix employers will aim to achieve in all operating theatres and paediatric wards is 1/3 RN with more than three years’ experience, 1/3 RN with one to three years’ experience and 1/3 graduate RN/EN.
Midwifery
- Senior midwives will be appointed from 1 January 2025 – one EFT at Mildura Public Hospital, West Gippsland Hospital, and Central Gippsland Health Service (Sale).
- Midwifery continuity of care models clause will reference maternity, antenatal, postnatal and domiciliary models from 1 July 2024.
Occupational health and safety
- Employers and ANMF will jointly focus on psychological injury and return to work, including returning to work with a different employer where appropriate.
- A Central Building Consultative Committee will be established to ensure consultation on construction and refurbishment.
- Audits of manual handling incidents will take place to inform whether manual handling training can be improved.
- Lists of Designated Work Groups (DWGs), Health and Safety Reps (HSRs), their training dates and vacancies will be provided to ANMF twice a year.
- ANMF will be given an opportunity to discuss occupational violence and aggression (OVA) incidents with employers where this does not already occur.
- New provisions aimed at preventing and addressing gendered violence, focusing particularly on sexual harassment. Sexual harassment has been added as an example of conduct that may warrant instant dismissal.
Discrimination
- The following attributes have been added to the discrimination clause: breastfeeding, gender identity, intersex status, an experience of family or domestic violence.
Climate change
- New climate change clause recognises climate change as a health issue and establishes processes both central and per employer to consult over environmental sustainability and climate change.
Leave improvements
- Single day personal leave without evidence will increase from three days to five days.
- Rather than up to three occasions of up to three days personal leave per year with a statutory declaration, this has increased to five occasions per year.
- Compassionate leave will be extended from the current two days to four days per occasion.
- Interstate public sector nurses and midwives relocating to Victoria will have their service recognised for the purposes of personal leave and long service leave. The same for nurses and midwives working in the Victorian local government sector. The changes will operate from the from 24 June 2024 (not retrospectively).
- If you move employers within the public sector, the 180-day cap on transferable personal leave will be removed.
- Long service leave will be calculated on the more advantageous of your contracted hours, or your average hours in the 12 months before commencing leave.
- Employees will be able to take long service leave in single days.
- For those transitioning to retirement the employee will be able to use their long service leave where a definitive date of retirement is provided.
- Paid family violence leave will attract penalties rather than base rate only. Access to 20 days leave on employment rather than being accrued for part-time and full-time. Casuals will have access to 10 days paid family violence leave.
- Paid parental leave qualifying period for non-casual nurses and midwives will reduce from six months to zero.
- Paid parental leave will be calculated on the more advantageous of your contracted hours, or your average hours in the 12 months before commencing leave.
- Prenatal leave will be expanded to cover assisted reproduction appointments that are only available during the employee’s ordinary rostered shift.
- Employers cannot unreasonably refuse employees on parental leave who want to work keeping in touch (KIT) days.
- Annual leave and long service leave can be used during your parental leave if you choose.
- A single test for accessing the sixth week of leave for weekend workers.
- Where minimum 17.5% annual leave loading applies this will now be calculated on five weeks of annual leave rather than four.
- Payment of disaster leave will now be per disaster occasion rather than per year.
- 20 days paid leave per year, plus up to 48 weeks of unpaid leave, are available for gender affirmation procedures.
- Two days leave for foster or primary carers on up to five occasions per calendar year.
- Ceremonial leave for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nurses and midwives has been improved recognising the need to access leave for ‘sorry business’.
- Adoption has been redefined to include kinship care, where kinship care is comparable to adoption.
- Enrolled nurses undertaking the Bachelor of Nursing/midwifery can access paid study leave.
Superannuation
- Superannuation, which is already paid on paid and unpaid components of parental leave, will now be paid during workers compensation, defence leave, jury duty and no safe job leave (whether paid or not paid) from July 2026.
Mandatory education
- Overtime now applies for mandatory training that does not occur in rostered time. Deduction from professional development leave is prohibited.
