With the St John of God Health Care enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) nominally expiring in June, bargaining has commenced for a replacement.
ANMF (Vic Branch) served St John of God with members’ claims on 7 March 2025. The employer’s initial offer contained several positive first steps, but work remains to be done around member claims either not agreed or not yet addressed.
Some of the key points of the offer
Wages
- 4.25% from FFPPOA 1 July 2027
- Full alignment with public nursing rates from FFPPOA 1 October 2025.
- 4.25% from FFPPOA 1 July 2026
- 4.25% from FFPPOA 1 July 2027
Although not included in the initial response, St John of God committed to review members’ claim for an increase in casual penalty rates for weekend work.
Allowances
The response agreed to several member claims in relation to allowances, including:
- Lead apron allowance of $9 for each shift or part thereof where an employee is required to wear a lead apron
- Vehicle allowance, qualifications allowance and on-call allowance all to be increased:
- 5% from FFPPOA 1 July 2025
- 4.25% from FFPPOA 1 July 2026
- 4.25% from FFPPOA 1 July 2027
- Night shift allowance to increase:
- $112.08 FFPPOA 1 July 2025
- $117.41 FFPPOA 1 July 2026
- $120.93 FFPPOA 1 July 2027
- Domiciliary allowance to increase:
- $3.77 per hour from FFPPOA 1 July 2025
- $3.93 per hour from FFPPOA 1 July 2026
- $4.09 per hour from FFPPOA 1 July 2027
- The introduction of an endorsed midwife allowance, aligned to the existing Grad Dip allowance.
The response did not agree to member claims for the introduction of a redeployment/change-of-ward allowance – a significant issue for members. It also did not agree to a claim for introducing a Sunday night shift allowance.
Leave
Many member claims in relation to leave were agreed, among them:
- Parental leave to increase from 10 weeks to 14 weeks over the life of the four-year Agreement
- ENs undertaking a Bachelor of Nursing/Midwifery can access paid study leave entitlement
- Part-time employees to have access to the 6th week of annual leave (pro-rata) from July 2027 – (although members are requesting this be brought forward to 2025)
- The use of single long service leave days.
The offer included an increase in compassionate leave to three days per occasion from 1 July 2025, which is one day less than members’ claim for four days.
St John of God agreed to increase professional development leave from three to four days from 1 July 2026, and from four to five days from 1 July 2027. Backfill of professional development, study and examination leave was not agreed.
Members’ claim for 17.5% leave loading to apply to all periods of annual leave was not agreed. Nor was the introduction of gender affirmation leave.
Rostering and staffing
St John of God did not agree to a claim for a change-of-roster allowance when the 28-day roster is not posted 28 days in advance – a key issue for members, as the 28-day roster is routinely posted 14 days in advance.
Additionally, St John of God did not agree to claims around the introduction of a permanent night shift, and improvements to night shift rostering, including a minimum 47-hour break post night shift before returning to work for an AM/PM shift.
Other matters
St John of God agreed to the inclusion of the word ‘midwives’ in the title of the Agreement and throughout the Agreement, as well as inclusion of a clause specifying that 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.
St John of God did not agree to claims including:
- Health Care at Home Nurses to be paid at a grade 3A
- Superannuation to be paid on parental leave (paid and unpaid period) and during no-safe-job leave (paid and unpaid)
- Remove any qualifying period, including for paid parental leave, for non-casual nurses and midwives
- Include a right to refuse overtime if it is not paid at overtime rates of pay.
- If a casual nurse/midwife’s shift is cancelled within two hours of the commencement of the shift, they will be paid the minimum engagement period.
Members’ claim for stronger ANMF involvement in addressing occupational violence and aggression (OVA) incidents and for improved manual handling measures were also effectively rejected, with the employer claiming to already have appropriate policies in place in respect to the claims.
Next steps
At a Job Rep meeting on 29 April, members identified a list of key priorities for ANMF to continue to negotiate, among them:
- Health Care at Home – to be paid at a 3A classification
- Staffing including provisions around the NUM/ANUM role
- Workload management provisions to adequately address workload issues
- Roster – to be posted 28 days in advance
- 17.5% leave loading – to apply to all periods of annual leave.
ANMF anticipates receiving a further response from St John of God by mid-May and will continue to update members.
