ANMF members working in public sector mental health endorsed a draft log of claims for their new enterprise agreement at the annual delegates conference in June. Branch Council then endorsed the claim at its July meeting, and ANMF has now served the claims to employers’ bargaining representative, the Victorian Hospitals’ Industrial Association (VHIA).
The log of claims is the basis for ANMF’s negotiations for the Victorian Mental Health Services 2025–2028 enterprise agreement. It contains more than 60 items, including:
- Increase wages and allowances to maintain parity with general public sector nurses
- Implementation of relevant improvements that ANMF secured in the general public sector nurses and midwives EBA including increased qualification allowance; change-of-roster allowance; night shift increases; reintroduction of permanent night shift for those who choose to work permanent night shift; increased single day absences without evidence; a redeployment allowance; a minimum 47-hour break following night shift before returning to AM/PM shift; reducing the qualifying period for paid parental leave from six months to zero; and a right-to-disconnect clause.
- Transitioning to a minimum number of nurses working in a community mental health team and a minimum allocation of a senior nurse (RPN 4) in each team.
- Reintroduction of standalone community assessment and treatment teams (CATT) for all mental health services.
- A provision that clearly sets out the minimum staffing profiles for all bed-based services, including Hospital in the Home.
- Expansion of graduate nurse support at each service seven days a week for all acute inpatient units.
Members can read the complete log of claims via anmfvic.asn.au/mhclaim.
Bargaining for the new agreement commenced on 24 July. At this meeting, all parties agreed to make every effort to come to an agreement by the current agreement’s expiry date of 31 December 2024. No one wants a repeat of the frustratingly drawn-out process involved in the previous negotiations.
In addition to ANMF (Vic Branch), other parties involved in bargaining include VHIA, the Department of Health, and the Health and Community Services Union (HACSU), which also represents allied health professionals, lived and living experience workers and disability support workers as well as admin and other support workers in the mental health, disability and AOD sectors.
Once all parties have tabled their respective claims and had an opportunity to provide a preliminary response, we intend to hold meetings twice a week.
Mental health members will be emailed regular EBA bargaining updates. If you work in the mental health sector and did not receive campaign update 1, you may have unsubscribed from our publication communications at some stage. You will need to fill in our resubscribe form to make sure you are kept up to date with all the important news and developments.
The Branch will also be holding mental health roadshows and site visits through in the coming weeks and months.
Collab conference
ANMF is an ongoing committee member and major sponsor of the Collaborative Mental Health Nursing Conference (the Collab), and we’ll be at the 2024 Collab Thursday and Friday this week (8 and 9 August).
Branch Acting Assistant Secretary Sam Casey will be chairing the keynote session on Friday with Professor Rhonda Wilson presenting on internationalisation in mental health nursing.
We will also have a stand – come visit us to ask questions and learn more about the EBA log of claims and the ongoing work that ANMF is doing in the mental health space.
2024 mental health and AOD workforce personnel survey
The Victorian Department of Health is inviting all mental health and AOD workers in public, community and private settings to participate in its workforce personnel survey.
Data collected from the survey informs the Department’s workforce planning including mapping supply and demand, workforce distribution and response to emerging needs, as well as identifying funding priorities and investments.
Participation is voluntary but will help them to identify gaps in the current workforce structure. Previous workforce data contributed to the development of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Strategy 2021–24 and the Workforce Capability Framework.
The survey takes about 25 minutes to complete. All responses will be de-identified.
The survey closes 30 August 2024.
