By Luke Voogt
Geelong maternal and child health nurses went on strike on Wednesday following an 17-month industrial dispute with council.
City Hall had denied Geelong nurses basic employment conditions including five week’s leave, according to Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) Victorian secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick.
“Nurses never take action lightly, but they’re extremely angry at council’s refusal of basic nursing entitlements,” Ms Fitzpatrick said.
The protected industrial action impacted 20 of council’s maternal and child centres across Geelong.
The union banned members from administrative tasks, meetings unrelated to clinical supervision and updating data during the first stage of the action on Wednesday.
“Parents may be inconvenienced, but the health and safety of their children will not be at risk,” Ms Fitzpatrick said.
Geelong’s council and ANMF agreed to a yearly 2.3 per cent wage rise over four years but negotiations reached a stalemate over annual leave.
The Victorian Local Government Award 2015 entitles nurses to five weeks of annual leave or six weeks if they do regular weekend or shift work
Several nearby councils provided this condition, Ms Fitzpatrick said.
“Maternal and child health nurses reduce and prevent serious and expensive health and social problems by providing parents, babies and their families with support, education and advice.
“Their employer should respect their valuable work by offering the minimum conditions for nurses instead of taking them for granted.”
Council recently offered to consider five weeks of annual leave in a broader review but ANMF rejected the offer, labeling it “disingenuous” and “last-minute”.
“All (council) has done is offered to consider an extra week dependent on the outcome of an undefined service review,” Ms Fizpatrick said.
But council’s maternal and child nurses were better off under their current conditions than the award, despite having four week’s leave, City Hall’s personnel manager Andrew Keen said.
“Overall, the City’s enterprise agreement provides far greater pay and conditions for all our maternal and child nurses compared to the nurses’ modern award.”
City Hall was reviewing any potential impact further industrial action could have on its services, Mr Keen said.
He confirmed the strike would not put families and children at risk.
“Potentially some families who access a few of our key age and stage appointments may be (impacted), however until we know the extent and the type of industrial action it is very difficult to estimate the impact.”
