Victorian hospitals have been provided with a 51-page dossier on how to conduct a lockout of nurses in a move slammed by the Australian Nursing Federation. This dossier was sent by the Hospitals Industry Association last week and includes templates for letters to be sent to nurses if they are to have their pay docked.
The association, which is paid by hospitals to represent them in industrial disputes, also recommends photographing protesting nurses and recording the number plates of any employees involved in unprotected industrial action. It also includes scripts on how to tell nurses they have been laid off or suspended.
The Australian Nursing Federation state secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick labelled the move “the sledgehammer approach". “It’s a 51-page document, it’s not an options paper, it’s a how-to-do document…It’s totally unnecessary, it totally misreads nurses and it’s never been an option by any State Government in the history of this state nor any other state in the country. I think the Government is very inexperienced and relying on very poor advice,” she said.
This follows that ultimatum issued by the Victorian nurses to the state government to come to the negotiating table this week or face the prospect of industrial action, including bed closures. The Australian Nursing Federation said on Sunday it was hopeful of an outcome in its pay dispute without affecting the welfare of patients.
“If the government is committed to settling this dispute, it can be settled by next Friday,” Ms Fitzpatrick said. “If the government genuinely doesn't want bed closures in this state, then they should be here at the negotiating table and work with us to settle the dispute by Friday ...What I say to (Victorian Premier) Mr. (Ted) Baillieu is you've got five days and the clock is ticking. Don't just talk the talk: produce the goods,” she said.
The union wants a pay rise for nurses of 18.5 per cent over three years and eight months, which is larger than the police deal struck with the government last month of about 19 per cent over four years.
From Thursday the nurses will impose overtime bans and wear union T-shirts while on duty. Neither tactic will have a direct effect on patient welfare, says Ms Fitzpatrick. But other options to be considered by the nurses include closing one-third of the state's public hospital beds.
Meanwhile, Ms Fitzpatrick said nurses were disgusted by the leaked document to cabinet, which raised the prospect of cutting more than $100 million from the nursing budget. It also suggested replacing highly qualified nurses with less qualified assistants for some tasks and pushing nurses to take industrial action, thus invoking the arbitrator Fair Work Australia.
“We are disgusted at the deception of the Baillieu government,” she said. “The plan that it has had since May this year has become quite clear in the document. It is clear to us that the government wants to force nurses to take industrial action (by) closing beds to force nurses down the track of arbitration.”
Mr Baillieu on Sunday would not say whether the document was endorsed by cabinet but said all the matters had been raised through the EBA process. He denied the government was trying to force Fair Work Australia to step in. “If they (the parties) don't agree, there are processes under the act to provide for a resolution. There is nothing new in that and that is exactly what happened last time.”
The chief negotiator for Victoria's hospitals however has denied claims that the Government is trying to substitute nurses for lower paid nursing assistants.
Alec Djoneff, of the Victorian Hospitals Industrial Association denies the accusation, saying they are desperate to reach an agreement on a new wage deal with the nurses. “We will not be substituting nurses for lower paid people,” he told ABC local radio. “It would be both clinically irresponsible and indeed it wouldn't be legal.”
He has attacked the tactics of the Australian Nurses' Federation. “I think that the propaganda that the ANF is running is ill-advised and dishonest…We are not seeking to do what they are stating. It's not clinically responsible and it's not legal,” he said.
Mr Djoneff says nursing assistants are employed in every other state in Australia and it is sensible that they are also used in Victoria. “What we want to do is free up nurses to do the more high level work and the low level work can be done by an assistant under their control,” he said. He says caring for patients at the bedside is nurses' work. “Feeding a patient can be done by an assistant…All we are simply saying is assistants in nursing are used in every other public health jurisdiction in Australia.”
Health Minister David Davis has refused to rule out changes to the nurse-patient ratio in hospitals. Mr Davis says he wants to introduce some “flexibility” to parts of the system. “There's no reason why the approach should not include protection of nurse-patient ratios and good flexibility,” he said.
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