Same-sex marriage, the inhumane treatment of asylum seekers and serious issues affecting the aged care sector were among agenda items discussed at the Australian Nursing Federation’s (ANF) Biennial National Conference 2011. The conference met over October 20-21 in Canberra.
The ANF is the professional and industrial voice for nurses, midwives and assistants in nursing (AINs). Its membership stands at 214,000 and it is one of Australia’s fastest-growing unions.
One hundred and twenty nurses, midwives and AINs from all states and territories attended the conference, joined by overseas speakers, Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, and US President Barack Obama’s campaign director Jeff Blodgett from Wellstone Action.
Silas and Blodgett outlined the attacks on nurses and public health systems in their countries, especially since the recent and ongoing global financial crises. They called on nurses and all public sector workers to act locally, nationally and internationally.
Resolutions carried at the conference included:
• lifting current restrictions under the federal marriage act to allow same sex couples to marry, ensuring equality for same sex couples,
• repealing the inhumane policies for asylum seekers, ensuring they are not discriminated against in their right to access health care,
• closing the wage gap for aged care nursing staff (nurses in aged care now receive between $190 and $300 a week less on average than nurses working in public hospitals), including consideration of a pay equity case, and
• continuing to fight the NSW government’s draconian anti-worker laws that remove all genuine collective bargaining rights for public sector workers.
The national conference followed a successful meeting of about 2000 Victorian ANF members at Dallas Brooks Hall on October 12. Nurses met to mark the start of their enterprise bargaining campaign. The agreement for public sector and public mental health nurses is due to expire on October 31.
Victorian state secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick reported to members on the progress of negotiations with the state government and the Victorian Hospitals Industry Association.
Fitzpatrick said the Baillieu leadership, when in opposition in October 2010, made a commitment to maintain current nurse to patient ratios. In a major backdown, they have withdrawn that commitment. Victoria is the only Australian state that does not have nurse shortages, largely due to effective nurse to patient ratios for the past 11 years.
Nurses at the meeting were angry at Baillieu’s offer of a 2.5% wage rise a year over four years, and an attack on career structures, skill mix, professional development leave, returns to short and broken shifts and other erosions of conditions. They agreed to proceed with a secret ballot process to take protected industrial action.
The 2.5% offer is very similar to that being offered to all public sector workers in Victoria and poses the potential for a wider industrial campaign of all public sector workers.