Royal
District Nursing Service nurses will meet this afternoon to consider the next
steps in their industrial campaign for improved wages, workloads and
conditions.
ANF
(Vic Branch) has been negotiating wages, workloads and conditions with RDNS
management since August 2011. RDNS provided a revised offer last week, which
ANF cannot accept. Further talks are scheduled today prior to a statewide RDNS ANF
members meeting at 4.30pm.
More
than 800 nurses working for the Royal District Nursing Service (RDNS) began
protected industrial action on Monday 18 June. Action has included
administrative and clerical bans, non-critical client assessments and wearing Respect
Our Work T-shirts to work and distributing Respect Our Work campaign material.
The
dispute is centred on when RDNS will start paying wage increases to its nurses
who have not had a pay rise since October 2010, allowances and RDNS seeking to
reduce nurses personal leave entitlements.
ANF
is seeking back payment of wages to 31 March 2012 so that RDNS nurses are paid
in line with public and private hospital nurses. RDNS says it will pay wage
increases once a new agreement has been balloted which is an unknown date in
the future - this would mean RDNS nurses will be paid at least $10,000 less
than hospital nurses by the end of the four-year agreement combined with a
reduction in conditions.
Australian
Nursing Federation (Victorian Branch) Assistant Secretary Pip Carew said: "The
Victorian Government has always provided RDNS with additional funding so that
it could pay the public sector nurses' wages - this doesn't appear to be the
case this time with RDNS stalling on wage rise implementation, scrimping on
allowances and trying to reduce nurses' personal leave by more than a week each
year.
"It
is also the responsibility of RDNS to advocate for more funding for this iconic
service and its clients to ensure budget decisions made today do not cause
budget blowouts tomorrow. If RDNS can't offer competitive wages it will have a
nurse shortage of its own making and patients will have to stay in hospital
longer," she said.
RDNS
nurses provide nursing care to approximately 35,000 clients across Melbourne
and parts of regional Victoria.
Royal
District Nursing Service centres involved are located in:
Altona
Ballarat
Bendigo
Berwick
Caulfield
Diamond Valley
Essendon
Frankston
Geelong
Heidelberg
West Melbourne (Homeless Persons Program)
Knox
Koonung
Lilydale
Moorabbin
Moreland
Hartwell (RALLY Healthcare)
