2 March 2022
Nurses and midwives at Ashford Hospital, Flinders Private Hospital and The Memorial Hospital will today commence voting on taking industrial action against their employer. The three hospitals are run by the Adelaide Community Healthcare Alliance Incorporated (ACHA), the largest private hospital group in South Australia.
The ACHA enterprise agreement with nurses and midwives expired at the end of June 2021 and despite numerous meetings with the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (SA Branch), no new agreement has been reached. During the negotiations, nurses and midwives have offered reasonable concessions in order to find middle ground with ACHA. Despite this, ACHA has barely moved its position on a number of important claims such as safe staffing and a decent wage increase.
At the moment, ACHA does not have a documented process for escalating staffing issues that arise during a shift, nor any mechanism to provide feedback to staff about reported incidents of unsafe staffing. This is unacceptable to ANMF members and leads to unsafe staffing and compromised patient care. Nurses and midwives are seeking a safe staffing clause that provides an enforceable mechanism to escalate staffing issues that arise during a shift to ensure management respond in a timely manner.
When we told ACHA last year that members had endorsed taking protected industrial action, they improved their wages offer to 1.75% for the first 2 years (up from 1.5%) and 2.25% in the third year (up from 2%). This offer is still below industry standards and does not keep pace with real increases to the cost of living. “Nurses and midwives are fed up and have resolved that they are now at a point where they need to follow through with action,’’ ANMF (SA Branch) CEO/Secretary Adj Associate Professor Elizabeth Dabars AM said. “We are seeing similar scenes across the country, with nurses and midwives who are tired of being treated poorly after times of heightened workloads and other pressures.
“Nurses have had a challenging period, meeting the needs of the community amid the COVID pandemic, braving the threat of exposure to the virus and having to work with PPE for long periods of time, leading to considerable discomfort,’’ Ms Dabars said. “Nurses deserve a fair wage increase and the assurance that every shift at work will be staffed safely.’’ The Fair Work Commission has granted a Protected Industrial Action Order to ballot all members employed at ACHA, to ask if they support taking industrial action.
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) will today (March 2) mail a ballot form to all members employed at ACHA asking them if they support taking any of the following three types of action:
- Wearing ANMF stickers on work clothing during shift time
- Refusing to fill out private health fund billings forms inclusive of Coronary Care Certificates, Intensive Care Certificates, and ANZICS Core APD Data Collection Forms
- Refusing to record Commonwealth Medical Benefits Scheme (CMBS) Numbers on Perioperative Nursing Care Records
The ANMF (SA Branch) is encouraging all members to vote YES in this ballot, and to return their completed ballot form to the AEC as soon as possible.