News

Following the consent orders issued by the Fair Work Commission on 21 January 2020 the Victorian Ambulance Union Incorporated (VAU) have continued to bargain with Health Select to try and reach agreement about the terms of the new proposed enterprise agreement.

On 5 March 2020, Health Select made the unilateral decision to withdraw from bargaining and keep its employees on the current enterprise agreement. Below is an update on the status of bargaining so far and an explanation of the VAU’s concerns about the proposed enterprise agreement.

1. Drafting issues

The VAU identified that there were several matters that had been agreed to include within the proposed enterprise agreement that had not been inserted into the agreement. This included the following agreed matters:

a) the entitlement to a spoilt meal allowance if employees were requested to return back to duty whilst taking a meal break;

b) employees to be reimbursed the cost of having to attain a working with children check;

Other drafting issues we had identified with the proposed enterprise agreement included the following:

c) Health Select had deleted several conditions contained in the 2010 agreement without informing the VAU or other bargaining representatives that they had done so or why. An example of this was a change to the dispute resolution clause, limiting the scope of matters about which employees could bring grievances. We stated that all these deletions or changes needed to be reinserted/explained before agreement could be confirmed.

d) Health Select’s key claim during bargaining has been that it wants to reduce the complexity of the agreement by omitting several provisions from 2010 agreement or reducing the length of the document by referring to other industrial instruments that contain key terms of your employment, such as for example, the National Employment Standards (NES) or the Ambulance & Patient Transport Industry Award 2020 (Award). All draft versions of the proposed enterprise agreement that we have reviewed have done this. However, we put forward various concerns about this decision/claim, including that the drafting left out detail for conditions and instead referred back to the NES or the Award, and in some cases, left out of the proposed enterprise agreement more beneficial parts of entitlements contained in these instruments. Our position is that these conditions should be described in full within the agreement itself (rather than referring back to the NES or Award). The reason for this is because as employees you should be able to access one document which comprehensively identifies in one place, all the terms and conditions of your employment – employees should not be forced to look to other sources to identify the details about their conditions of employment.

e) Health Select had agreed to an employee bargaining representative claim to pay the availability allowance while being on the availability roster if a shift was rejected in the last hour rather than 30min before the end of the shift availability time (i.e. the allowance would not be forfeited if the shift was rejected in the last hour). The drafting did not reflect this agreement.

2. BOOT issues

For the Fair Work Commission to approve an enterprise agreement it must be satisfied that it passes the ‘better of overall test’ (BOOT). For an enterprise agreement to be approved it must be more beneficial then the Award overall.
The VAU identified clauses within the proposed enterprise agreement which meant that it may not have been more beneficial for employees than the Award i.e. BOOT issues. These concerns included but were not limited to the following issues:

a) when employees take annual leave under the Award, they are entitled to a loading of 17.5% and to the allowances and the penalties they would have received if they were working. In the proposed enterprise agreement it was not clear whether Health Select would pay both to employees. When this was raised during the meeting, Health Select stated they would investigate and consider our concerns.

b) permanent full-time employees do not have set finishing times. Employees under the Award are required to have rosters that provide start and finish times. Health Select maintained its position that it did not need to provide set finish times for permanent full-time employees.

c) under the Award employees would be paid for their meal break (known in the Award as a ‘crib-break’). At Health Select employees are currently not paid for their meal break.

d) While Health Select agreed to provide paid meal breaks for AV surge shifts, ERPS or dedicated shifts, they did not agree to provide paid meal breaks for all other shifts.

e) under the Award employees are entitled to a lump sum payment of $46.02 when finishing work between 6.00 pm and 8.00 am or commencing work between 6.00 pm and

f) 6.30 am. Health Select’s proposed enterprise agreement would only compensate employees per hour for shifts worked between 6.00 pm and 6.00 am.

g) the proposed enterprise agreement drafting did not provide for the calculation of overtime payments for casuals consistent with recent changes proposed to be made to the Award (effective from 4 February 2020). Health Select stated they would look into this concern.

3. Other claims discussed

The VAU also put forward key claims to Health Select. These included that:

1. employees should be entitled to a student observer allowance when observing students;

2. in response to Health Select’s wage offer, employees should receive pay increases of 3% per year on both wages and allowances and that there should be an insertion of a wage/classification structure based on years of service.

At the end of the meeting the VAU requested further information from Health Select to better understand their position in response to the financial claims on the table, including the basis upon which Health Select said they could not afford to pay its employees paid meal breaks for all shifts or the shift allowance in the manner prescribed by the Award.

Responses received after the meeting

On 5 March 2020 the parties attended the fifth bargaining meeting. While Health Select had since inserted into the proposed enterprise agreement terms dealing with the spoilt meal allowance and the working with children check, the parties remained in disagreement about several key items. In summary, this included but was not limited to the following:

a) Health Select rejected our wage claim;

b) Health Select disagreed with the concerns we raised about BOOT issues;

c) Health Select disagreed that the drafting for the calculation of overtime for casual employees under the proposed enterprise agreement was an issue;

d) Health Select disagreed with the other drafting concerns raised by the VAU, including that the drafting for availability allowance claim was inconsistent with what Health Select had agreed with the bargaining representatives.

Following the meeting, Health Select wrote to the VAU informing us in short, that given we had not conceded our claims and in-principle agreement could not be reached about the terms of the proposed enterprise agreement, they had declared an ‘impasse’ and were withdrawing from bargaining. They indicated that the existing agreement would continue to apply to all employees. Other bargaining representatives were notified soon after.

Next Steps

The VAU wish to continue bargaining for the proposed agreement and do not accept that an impasse has been reached. In addition, we reject the unilateral claim that bargaining has come to an end.

The VAU are waiting to receive a conciliation date from the FWC to progress bargaining.

In preparation for this conciliation we need to hear from Health Select employees about what they want to see in the agreement and have planned a teleconference this week with members to work through the outstanding issues.
For those who are employees of Health Select and not a member of the VAU – JOIN! Your strength as a workforce comes from being part of a strong and organized collective group. To get the best result in bargaining as your bargaining representative we need your support.

If you have any questions about the matters contained in this bulletin, please email [email protected].

In Solidarity,