Northern Health
ANMF (Vic Branch) has achieved a big win for members who were not paid a laundry allowance while working for Northern Health.
Under the public sector enterprise agreement, the employer must pay members a laundry allowance in all cases when the employer does not provide or pay for the laundering of uniforms, including when they otherwise supply scrubs. Northern Health was not doing this.
After the issue was raised by members, ANMF immediately brought a case in the Federal Court to enforce our members’ rights. Now, ahead of the listed trial dates, it has settled between the parties beforehand.
Northern Health will now backpay current and former employees the amount of the laundry allowance they would have received over the past six years. Going forward, Northern Health will also pay the amount of the laundry allowance to employees under the current enterprise agreement.
Northern Health will make backpayments to eligible current and former employees over the next six months. In order to do so, Northern Health will require the bank account details of former employees. Please contact us if you are a former employee who worked for Northern Health during the previous six years so that we can help facilitate receiving your backpayment.
This settlement is a significant achievement and shows what ANMF can do when our members have been underpaid. We will always take up the fight to recover underpayments and contraventions of the enterprise agreement.
We thank our members for raising this underpayment with us and sticking with us while we fought this through the Federal Court. This is a win owned by our members and Job Reps and we thank you all for your diligence and commitment.
Another laundry allowance win: Gippsland Lakes Community Health
ANMF also recently identified that Gippsland Lakes Community Health had not been paying the laundry allowance. This was an error that stemmed from Gippsland Lakes believing the allowance only applied if a compulsory uniform was required. Following ANMF clarification, Gippsland Lakes agreed to commence payment of the allowance, with members also receiving backpay going back six years in some cases.
Mercy Mental Health
As a result of Fair Work Commission proceedings initiated by ANMF (Vic Branch), Mercy Mental Health have agreed to audit and rectify significant systemic underpayments identified by ANMF members.
What is the situation?
In January 2024, ANMF Job Reps at Mercy Mental Health contacted the Branch, via member assistance, with concerns about underpayments resulting from Mercy deducting 30 minutes from members’ overtime hours when members were in fact entitled to a paid break under clauses 93.4 and 93.8 of the EBA.
The underpayments dated back to at least 2021, and included members in the
- Enhanced Crisis Assessment Team
- Emergency Mental Health unit
- Adult inpatient unit
- Acute Community Intervention Services (formerly known as the Crisis Assessment and Treatment Team)
- Prevention and Recovery Care
- and the Mother and Baby Unit.
ANMF initially attempted to resolve these disputes at the workplace level, but when the issues remain unresolved the Branch escalated the dispute to the Fair Work Commission. In July, Mercy conceded that underpayment has occurred and have now committed to undertaking an audit process with an external consultant to identify and repay affected staff. They will report back to ANMF in a month with respect to the conduct of the audit and the timeframes.
Once completed, all identified underpayments must be repaid and affected employees notified. Mercy advised ANMF that this process should be completed within six weeks.
