ANMF members across St Vincent’s Private Hospitals are continuing to take protected industrial action (PIA) to improved patient care and safe staffing. On Thursday 5 December hundreds of nurse and midwife members stopped work and rallied in Melbourne for a second time as part of their campaign for better wages and conditions.
Important Members’ Meeting – Tuesday 10 December 2024 at 2.30pm
ANMF will be holding an online members’ meeting on Tuesday 10 December 2025 at 2.30pm for 30 minutes. Members are urged to attend this meeting.
The meeting is online and will be held during double shift time to assist as many members as possible to join. If you are not working, please also join the meeting. Please also download and print the meeting notice and display it on your ward tearoom notice board.
It will be critical that during the ongoing PIA, as members, you continue to stand together. Please speak with your colleagues, and if they are members encourage them to get involved in the actions.
ANMF staff and Job Reps will be visiting every St Vincent’s Private Hospital over the coming days to provide further information about the next phase of the PIA, including the rolling four hour stop work actions that are due to commence soon.
All Stage 1 PIA is still in place – T shirts, admin bans, not working beyond rostered shift times, ban on redeployment etc.
Escalating action – four hour stop work action daily from 7am Friday 13 December
We have notified St Vincent’s Private that ANMF (Vic Branch) members on each ward or unit (including theatres) at any of the St Vincent’s Private Hospitals will stop work every day for up to four hours or half their shift (whichever is longer), from 7am Friday 13 December 2024.
- The time can be taken at any point in the shift, however if it is an early shift the member may decide to take the first four hours off. If the shift is 10 hours the member may take the first five hours.
- No more than one third of the staff rostered on the shift should participate in the stop work action. The actual staff members who will be taking the action can be decided by ward staff the day before so that the staff member/s can notify their NUM in the afternoon.
- Members are encouraged to email their NUM prior to the shift to inform them that they will be taking the protected industrial action.
- Smaller units where there are 5 or less nurses or midwives rostered can decide who and when they stop for 4 hours or half their shift, provided no one ANMF member will stop more than 3 times in a week.
For example, if a ward has 36 beds and there are ten nurses rostered on the AM shift then three nurses, who are ANMF members would stop work for four hours on that shift. If it is an early shift the member may decide to take the first four hours off so that they do not have to leave their allocated patients at 11am.
It is crucial that all members participate in this escalated stop work action. It means that members are giving up one day of pay in each six full shifts (or half a shifts pay in each three shifts). The hardship fund is there to help. This sacrifice is a small price to pay in our effort to get decent staffing standards – any staffing standards into the agreement.
ANMF will support members who are threatened, intimidated or harassed or who lose pay as a result of taking this protected industrial action. Remember you have access to the hardship fund – it’s easy and quick. As members you will just need your pay slip and a few sentences about why the pay deduction made things difficult.
Campaign Lanyard Card now available
ANMF has prepared a lanyard card for ANMF members which has a QR code on either side. One of the QR codes provides you with access to the Patient letter and the other side has a QR code to the campaign resources page.
Thursday 5 December Stop Work
Members at the second STOP WORK rally heard from ANMF Acting Branch Secretary Madeleine Harradence, who highlighted the staffing pressures nurses and midwives working at St Vincents are facing, including:
- St Vincent’s Private Hospital Kew, where two nurses who overnight on Thursday 5 December were expected to provide care to 19 patients, with no other nurse in charge or any other hospital supports.
- St Vincent’s Private Fitzroy, when on Wednesday 4 December the birth suite was dangerously understaffed for the night duty shift, and midwives on the PM shift were advocating for their patients. Yet it took hours for St Vincent’s Private executive to place the birth suite on bypass overnight.
Luke Hilakari, Secretary of Victorian Trades Hall Council congratulated nurses and midwives at the rally for their determination and strength saying his mother trained at St Vincent’s as a nurse and would be proud that he was there, leading the union movements support for St Vincent’s Private nurses and midwives.
Every St Vincent’s Private hospital was strongly represented at the Stop Work despite hospital management’s efforts to discourage members from attending. Even those members from the Werribee campus enjoyed some lunch and were able to join the rally despite hospital management delaying their departure with a late meeting which delayed handover.
Members are to be congratulated for their resolve in standing together and continuing to pursue an agreement outcome that includes quality and safety for patients through the introduction minimum nurse/midwife patient standards or ratios at St Vincent’s Private Hospitals.
Redeployment issue
ANMF understands that some nurses and midwives have effectively been stood down or forced to take a day of annual leave when you declined to be redeployed from your usual ward to another ward/unit. ANMF sought urgent legal advice about the actions of the employer. We have commenced an action in the Fair Work Commission in relation to a member at East Melbourne who we believe has been unlawfully stood down.That applaication was in FWC on Thursday and has been listed for hearing on 30 January 2025.
If you or a colleague is stood down because you have refused to be moved from your home ward to another ward/unit please report the employer action (whether stand down without pay or forced use of paid leave).
Reports can be made through the ANMF Redeployment action form on the website anmfvic.asn.au/redeployment.
Hardship fund and reporting pay docking threats or harassment
It is your legal right under the Fair Work Act to take protected industrial action in support of your campaign for an improved enterprise agreement.
‘Protected’ means you cannot be terminated or disciplined for taking industrial action. For protected industrial action items like shutting beds or stopping work, management still have the right to dock pay for the time of the stoppage e.g. if you stop work for two hours then they can deduct two hours pay only.
ANMF will support members who are threatened, intimidated or harassed or who lose pay as a result of taking protected industrial action. Where a member loses income as a result of protected industrial action and is facing hardship, the ANMF (Vic Branch) will support that member financially through our hardship fund.
During the protected industrial action campaign members have access to two forms to:
- report pay docking threats, intimidation and harassment via anmfvic.asn.au/stvprivreport.
- make a hardship fund application to be supported by your union via anmfvic.asn.au/stvprivhardship.
Please note members will need to upload pay slip evidence of pay docking and the date of pay docking as part of any application.
Tell health insurers to give private hospitals a fair share – Sign the petition
Private hospitals across Australia have a 41% share of patient hospitalisations and employ around 70,000 nurses and midwives.
Over two-thirds of elective surgery takes place in private hospitals.
But something is not right.
To work in private hospitals, you deserve comparable wages with your public sector colleagues. We know you also want safe staffing levels to support safe patient care.
But in our negotiations, ANMF is constantly told by private hospitals that they don’t have the money because of the contracts they sign with private health insurers don’t pay enough.
Tell the private health insurers that it’s time to pay their fair share to private hospitals so they can pay decent wages and provide safe staffing.
It seems health insurers only care about the profits they reap, not the quality of the care provided for patients (or the working conditions of those who care for them).
Campaign resources
Members are encouraged to use the campaign social media profile picture, Teams screen, Dear patient letter, Nurses and midwives speak out flier, Information for senior nurses and midwives and social media work ban guidance all available at anmfvic.asn.au/stvprivresources.
Take photos and videos of your action
Keep uploading your photos and short videos of members wearing the campaign t-shirts at work or reading their letter to the editor, and with your campaign signs and at the upcoming stop work rally so we can share these on ANMF’s social media channels and in our publications. Refer to ANMF’s Social media work-ban guidance on our campaign resources page.
Remember to take your pics or videos holding the camera vertically as these are better for social media reels.
Please don’t email photos or video as the quality will be reduced. Instead upload the original-sized files to our St Vincent’s Private Hospitals Dropbox folder at anmfvic.asn.au/stvsdropbox.
Got a campaign inquiry?
If you need to get in touch with your ANMF Organiser please contact them via records@anmfvic.asn.au.
- St Vincent’s Private Hospital, Fitzroy – Mim Harrison (relieving for Mitch Hoover)
- St Vincent’s Private Hospital, East Melbourne – Mim Harrison (relieving for Mitch Hoover)
- St Vincent’s Private Hospital, Kew – Jodi Dowler (relieving for Narelle Hayes)
- St Vincent’s Private Hospital, Werribee – Mim Harrison (relieving for Mitch Hoover)
