Industrial News 2005

December 2005

Nurses rally to the cause

Thousands of nurses joined an estimated 550,000 unionists, workers and community members across the nation in November to protest against the Howard Government’s regressive industrial relations changes.

ACTU secretary Greg Combet said the historic protest demonstrated the government’s plans to erode basic working conditions would not be tolerated.
‘Australia’s largest ever national worker’s protest has sent a clear message to the Prime Minister. Working families built this country. They fought and died for it. They do not deserve to have their rights at work taken away.’
ACTU president Sharan Burrow urged the crowds to remember the day of protest.

‘This is the start of something. For more than 100 years, Australia has had an IR system that has given working people a share of the benefits of economic prosperity when the times are good – and ensured that there are decent protections for people when times get tough. This is the system that the federal government’s workplace laws will destroy.’

Face to face with PM fails to reassure

A face to face meeting with the Prime Minister has failed to reassure NSW nurse Angela Pridham the IR changes will not hurt nurses.

As a NSW Nurses’ Association (NSWNA, ANF NSW) delegate for Shellharbour Hospital, Ms Pridham was invited to meet the Prime Minister after nurses in Wollongong protested over the changes.

But the experience did not provide the reassurance nurses were seeking.
‘I felt that [the Prime Minister] was very far removed from where we as the workers are. We’ve had to fight so hard in nursing to get parity with other health professionals, and to get those conditions into our award to make it a reasonable job and to have a reasonable workload to be able to sustain nurses and retain nurses and recruit them.

‘I now feel that all of that is going to go out the window because of the fact that the government either doesn’t understand it’s own legislation or it’s going ahead at the risk of disadvantaging millions of workers across Australia,’ Ms Pridham said.

WorkChoices: less choice more control

The Howard Government’s WorkChoices policy gives unprecedented government control over workplace agreements, according to a leading Industrial relations researcher.

John Buchanan, acting director of the University of Sydney’s centre for industrial relations research and training (accirt), told a Melbourne conference that although the proposed legislation purported to be about choice, it was more about control.

Buchanan said the legislation would give new powers to the federal minister for employment and workplace relations to declare almost any employment a prescribed service and circumvent the opportunity for workers to take industrial action as part of negotiations for change.

Under the legislation, workers, unions and even employers themselves could be fined for even discussing pattern bargaining, Dr Buchanan said.

And as existing awards expired, Buchanan warned workers could be forced to become either independent contractors, or to sign on to Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs).

AWAs, the centrepiece of the government’s WorkChoices package, include only five basic minimum entitlements which are only available to full-time, permanent employees.

There are no minimum pro rata arrangements for part-time or casual
employees.

‘We are moving into uncharted territory with regard to labour law,’ Dr Buchanan said.

WorkChoices not fair: nurses tell Senate

ANF federal industrial officer Nick Blake and nurse representatives from NSW, Victoria and the ACT have told the Senate Inquiry into industrial relations (IR) that the proposed changes were ‘an unnecessary and harsh attack on the industrial rights and entitlements of Australian nurses’.

Full-time nurse and ANF federal president Coral Levett told the inquiry her colleagues were ‘very frightened about the future of nursing’.

‘We do not believe we can sustain the existing shortage [of nurses] in an environment that makes it less attractive for nurses to enter the field…The real fear for nurses is that any change to the detriment of nursing …will cause us to topple.’

Nursing and midwifery were 24-hour a day, seven-days-a week services, and the ‘five minimum standards’ would work to their disadvantage, according to ANF ACT Branch member Katrina Milbourne.

‘[Nurses and midwives] currently get remunerated for the unsociable hours they work such as night duty and weekend shifts, and they get that through additional leave. The rest of the non-shift working workforce gets 13 public holidays on top of the four weeks annual leave they get. I do not believe the five minimum standards actually acknowledge a shift-working group that will not have access to those days,’ Milbourne said.

In its submission the ANF warned it was in the interests of nurses and the community that the existing award safety net be maintained and the minimal conditions of employment that thousands of nurses reliant on awards now receive, were not further undermined.

‘A comprehensive award safety net does provide a degree of protection and dignity for those dependent on awards and who are consequently often the most vulnerable. The fair pay conditions standards are a pale and inadequate substitute,’ the submission said.

‘The total deregulation of wages and conditions encouraged by the new industrial relations legislation will lead to far greater fragmentation and significantly worsen the disparity in wages and conditions of nurses across various sectors, particularly in the aged care sector.

‘This is not in the interests of the residents and their families, nor is it an acceptable basis on which to ensure the fair and equitable delivery of health services to the community in general.’

Alert and alarmed

NSW nurses have donned orange armbands in protest at the Howard Government’s workplace reforms.

The armbands are part of the NSWNA’s ‘Be Alert; Be Aware’ campaign which encourages nurses, their patients and colleagues to be both ‘alert and aware’ to the attack on workers’ rights.

NSWNA general secretary Brett Holmes said nurses were opposed to the federal takeover of the industrial relations system, including the functions of the state Industrial Relations Commission.

The gains made by nurses had been hard won through the ANF’s action at the NSW IRC, and would have been impossible to achieve under the federal industrial relations system, Mr Holmes said.