We met with Virtus again to hear what else they had to say about your agreement. Here’s the headlines on what was said:
• They’ll back pay nurses affected by the on-call issue and pay it going forward
• They won’t cap the amount of annual leave you’re required to take when practice shuts
down, despite our claim, and they’ll formalise the arrangement which sees you shut down
over Chrissy/new years and make reference to what happens now in the clause. They’ll
also formalise what (allegedly) happens at the day hospital now, which is that you can take
annual leave by mutual agreement, or you can do alternate duties during a period like
school holidays when there are no cases
• Virtus won’t increase annual leave, and they won’t align annual leave to be equitable
across different workforces. This is disappointing given that they’re the ones that wanted
an amalgamated agreement, and they’re the ones that said the more favourable provision
would apply. They point to the nurses award as the logic, but the reality is that we’re
negotiating an agreement not an award, and they have the discretion to give better-than-award conditions
• Personal leave will be made the same between all other workers, and they’ll phase this in
so that you have 100 hours in 2025, 125 hours in 26, and 150 hours in 27 to be equal with
nurses
• By our meeting next Tuesday (30 July), they’ll have a classification structure to show us for support
staff, particularly admin
• They won’t move on changing time being paid, but they will come back to us about some
kind of unwritten agreement whereby it’s acknowledged (maybe)
• Super paid fortnightly with pay was still also something they were reticent to accept citing
payroll issues. We’ve told them that it doesn’t need to be immediate, but that if they can
guarantee they’ll work towards it in the next year we’ll consider this approach
• No substantial movement on addressing short staffing within the EA, calling it
“operational” rather than a bargaining issue
They also touched on wages, moving their 3.75% in the first year up to 4%, and offering a suite of
additional increases on top of the first-year increase depending on where you fall in the
classification structure. They told us that this was in a bid to move closer to “market rates”. These
increases looked like:
Scientists
• An additional 0.5% for level 2.3
• 1% for 2.4
• 2% for 2.5
• 3% for levels 3.1-3.5%
Nurses
• 0.3% for level 1.6
• 0.5% for levels 1.7-3.2
We raised that once we receive the classification structure for admin, we’ll need to do our work
with you to see if there are other areas in that structure that need bolstering to be more
competitive. Virtus said that they’re open to this, but that they’d need to see more information
from us first about what we identify and that there’s no guarantee they’d give admin additional
increases.
We'll continue to keep you updated as bargaining continues but if you’ve got any questions, feel free to get in touch via HACSUassist on 1300 880 032 or at [email protected]