There was a sea of red when public sector nurses filled Melbourne’s Festival Hall on November 11 to decide on further industrial action. About 50 buses brought nurses from across the state.
A swing version of “Danny Boy” played in the background to set a sombre but defiant tone. Messages of support came from Australian Council of Trade Unions president Ged Kearney and the California Nurses Association.
Nurses, midwives and mental health nurses have sought a 3.5% wage rise a year for four years, as well as superannuation and overtime improvements and maintaining patient-to-nurse ratios. But the Baillieu government would cut nurse-to-patient ratios and close 800 beds across the state, the union said.
ANF members voted to take protected industrial action, including small-scale work bans and wearing T-shirts and badges promoting the campaign at work.
But nurses were disgusted to discover the Victorian Liberal government, the Victorian Hospitals Industrial Association (VHIA) and the state's hospitals were considering a lock-out against nurses to end their enterprise bargaining campaign.
The November 6 Sunday Age revealed the government planned to slash $104 million from the nursing budget by replacing nurses with low-skilled “health assistants” and abandoning nurse-to-patient ratios.
The Age also revealed on November 9 that VHIA had sent detailed advice to hospital management around the state about how to lock out nurses, encouraging employers to take photographs and record number plates of nurses involved in industrial action.
The 51-page document also had “how to” scripts for standing down nurses or docking their pay. “They think they’re the ABCC,” said one nurse at the November 11 meeting.
These tactics were similar to the ones used in the previous 2007 bargaining campaign. The government is trying to drive the nurses into arbitration to cut jobs and wages.
The ANF applied to Fair Work Australia for conciliation, but the state government refused. However, ANF industrial officer Paul Gibbert won the case for conciliation, which is due to begin on November 16.
But the nurses’ meeting still voted unanimously to ramp up the industrial action and close one in three beds from 7am on November 12. They know from past experience that if they take the pressure off the government, they will lose quickly. They also know the government cannot be trusted after the week’s exposes.
“How long will this go on for?” asked one nurse. “As long as it takes,” was the response.
[Jackie Kriz is an Australian Nurses Federation delegate in Geelong.]