Building on our experiences
Published: 5 October 2009
We learnt some valuable lessons during our Your Rights at Work campaign and we’ve now reached a critical point where the experiences we gained must be built on to further our influence around change on a number of fronts.
Members may have seen or heard recent media commentary that nurses working in aged care could be affected by the transitional arrangements of the award modernisation process. This coverage follows the release of details of the 49 new awards to be introduced by the federal government, and the arrangements for those on current awards to transfer to these modern awards.
While this is an extremely complex process it is important members understand how they could be affected and why we must be active in maximising our influence in political processes to defend and advance your interests.
If you’re a nurse or midwife not covered by a collective agreement (such as the Blue Care agreement which covers aged care and domiciliary nurses working at Blue Care facilities) then one of the numerous nursing awards in Queensland currently applies to you. These awards detail your minimum wages and working conditions.
As part of the federal government’s process to simplify and reduce the number of awards, all of the Queensland nursing awards, along with the nursing awards from other states and territories, will be rolled into one national nursing award. This will be known as the Nurses Award 2010. If you do not have a collective agreement in place then the Nurses Award 2010 will apply to you from 1 January 2010.
The greatest number of nurses which the new award will apply to, and who will be affected by the transitional arrangements, work in aged care. According to our estimates, the new award will apply to 40 percent of aged care nurses.
Currently the pay rates under the key nursing award which covers these aged care nurses (the Nurses’ Aged Care Award – State 2005) are higher than the pay rates under the new Nurses Award 2010. During the transition period from 1 January 2010 until 30 June 2010 these nurses’ rates of pay will stay at the higher level.
However over five years, rates of pay will follow the new Nurses Award rates, which are lower than the current aged care award. In practical terms this means that those aged care nurses covered by the new award will take a pay cut each year over five years (as a result of inflation) while most other nurses are gaining pay rises.
At a time when we are campaigning so hard to close the wages and skill mix gap in aged care through our Because We Care campaign, these transitional arrangements are doing the very opposite.
The ANF has made an application through the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC), who have been charged with over-seeing the award modernisation process, for the transitional arrangements to be reviewed and the necessary amendments made.
We’ve also written to the federal government requesting them to urgently intervene in this situation to ensure we have an award system that does not cut the wages of nurses who are already struggling most.
We hope the government and the AIRC will take immediate steps to address this issue, and we will be active in seeking to influence these processes.
This situation highlights the vital need for us to continue our work in ensuring that the values and interests of our members are advanced and unintended policy consequences of the current and competing reform agendas are addressed.
We actively campaigned for fair workplace laws and for fair wages and conditions in the lead up to the last federal election, and QNU members can rest assured that we’re prepared to do the same during the 2010 election if our interests aren’t met. This time however, we already know the tools we need and how to use them to make an even greater impact.
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