South Australian Nurses win long back-pay struggle

South Australian nurses have won a long and gruelling battle 
over back-pay for annual leave loadings. The nurses' claim was 
opposed by successive SA governments and was ultimately fought 
out before the full bench of the South Australian Supreme 
Court.

Like other public health service employees, SA nurses frequently 
work shift work and long periods of overtime — sometimes for 
seven days without a break. SA state public servants are legally 
entitled to an annual leave loading for working under these 
conditions, but for most employees the loading is limited to a 
certain payment level.

The nurses argued that their annual leave loading should not be 
limited. Last week the court finally agreed to a 20 percent 
loading for all hours worked with back payment to when the court 
case began three years ago.

Lee Thomas, SA Secretary of the Australian Nursing Federation 
(ANF), commented: "For most nurses who work in the public 
hospital system this will mean that they will receive 
significantly higher payments when they now take their annual 
leave. They will also get back payment to July 1998, with most 
receiving between $1277 and $2893. Considering that public 
hospitals employ in excess of 7000 full-time equivalent nurses 
the agreement is worth in the order of $10 million in back pay 
alone."

The judgement has important implications for other SA State 
Government employees. It recognises the increasing hardships 
imposed on them by every extra hour in the working week, and 
requires the employer to compensate them by way of loadings for 
all the extra hours worked.

While the South Australian nurses are celebrating this long-
overdue victory, their counterparts in other States are still 
engaged in hard struggles over pay and conditions.

Victorian nurses pursue pay rise

In Victorian public hospitals, nursing staff have claimed a 24 
percent pay increase, and a fixed minimum ratio of one nurse to 
every four patients in metropolitan Melbourne.

The pay of Victorian nurses has fallen significantly behind that 
of other state employees. Entry-level nurses receive $35,000 per 
annum, compared to $46,000 at entry level for police officers and 
$43,000 for teachers.

The number of patients receiving treatment at the state's public 
hospitals has increased dramatically over the past three years 
because of the decline in the number of medical practices willing 
to bulk bill.

ANF Victorian Secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick commented: "Staff at 
Monash (Hospital) say 68 percent of people who present at 
casualty were category four or five patients, who could easily 
have been treated by their local GP."

The situation is acerbated by the federal government's failure to 
provide enough aged care centres forcing more elderly folk to 
seek treatment from hospitals.

Squeezed by inadequate federal funding and increasing patient 
demands, some Victorian hospitals are expected to slide into 
deficit within the next few months. The number of patients 
waiting for urgent elective surgery has also jumped ominously 
since June last year.

The Victorian Government lays much of the blame for the looming 
crisis in health care in Victoria on the Federal Government's 
failure to match the state's health funding on a dollar for 
dollar basis. A spokesman for Health Minister Health Bronwyn Pike 
said that "We need $350 million more just to tread water . but 
they have cut more than $1 billion from health across Australia."

"So this has a massive impact on our ability to pay wage 
increases and improve conditions"!

Both State and Federal Governments have little compunction when 
it comes to pouring vast sums into subsidies for the private 
health sector, wars or highly dubious projects such as 
Melbourne's Federation Square. The Square's construction costs 
were a financial bottomless pit, which one observer aptly 
described as "an urban monstrosity."

In the case of the nurses' pay and working conditions the 
government expects nurses to carry the can as governments pursue 
their aim of driving more people into the private health system 
and running down public health care. But they certainly won't. As 
Ms Fitzpatrick remarked, "Whichever way you look at it, the 
nurses and the government are on a collision course."