The public sector mental health EBA has in-principle agreement from all parties.
Last week, ANMF received notification from the Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) that its members have endorsed the revised public mental health sector EBA offer. This is great news and brings members one step closer to receiving their pay increases and improved conditions and entitlements.
It has unfortunately taken longer than anyone wanted to get to this step, but this was out of our control. While ANMF’s mental health nursing members endorsed the offer at a members’ meeting back in March, HACSU’s members – including administrative staff, lived experience workers and allied health workers –held ongoing concerns around several non-nursing matters.
ANMF can only negotiate terms and conditions for the sections of the agreement that are relevant to our mental health nurse members, which in turn means that our members can only endorse the offer as it relates to those sections.
But now that all bargaining parties are in agreement, the process can finally move to the next step.
What are the next steps?
Next comes final drafting. This is where the agreed entitlements and conditions are detailed and reflected in each relevant clause. For example, it’s not enough to simply say that a change of ward allowance is now included; the EBA also has specify what this means, and what it does (and does not) include.
This can take some time but parties have been drafting the previously endorsed nursing-specific clauses over the past few months to help speed this stage up.
Once drafting is finalised, a formal vote on the offer must be held. As part of this step, the employer (not ANMF) is required to provide every employee covered by the agreement a copy of the proposed EBA, and to notify eligible employees about the voting process, including the time and place it will occur and the method by which it will occur.
Although this is a legal requirement of the employer, ANMF will also provide summaries of the proposed agreement so that members are clear about what they are voting on.
If the majority of members vote to accept the agreement, it then goes to the Fair Work Commission, which will go through every clause to ensure that all the legally required steps and processes have been followed. When the Commission approves it, the agreement will become legally enforceable seven days later and the benefits of the Agreement can commence.
You can read more about these steps in our EBA 101 series.
As a reminder, the offer includes the pay increase of 28.4 per cent, compounded (and inclusive of the 1.5 per cent paid in July 2024), along with 83 improvements to entitlements and conditions for mental health nurses.
These include a improved night shift penalties, improved qualification allowance, the introduction of a three-level nurse unit manager structure, strengthened provisions to protect nursing positions in community mental health teams, and additional EFT for graduate support nurses and parent infant units.
The offer also clearly sets out the minimum staffing profiles for all bed-based services at each mental health service. This is an important foundation step for nurse to consumer ratios.
A full summary is available via our mental health EBA campaign page (you can download the mental health EBA summary booklet, wages and allowances tables).
Members invited to remember the 1942 liberation of captured Australian Army nurses
The Australian Nurses Memorial Centre will be holding a Festal Choral Evensong on Sunday 21 September to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Australian Army nurses captured after the fall of Singapore in 1942 and interred in Sumatra, as well as those captured in Rabaul and later interred in Japan.
The service will commemorate the sacrifice of those nurses who did not return from being interned. It will also give thanks for the return of those liberated and their later contribution to Australia, their families and their communities.
The event will be held from 5pm on 21 September at Christ Church South Yarra, corner Punt and Toorak Roads (683-701 Punt Road) South Yarra.
