MELBOURNE Health workers based in Epping will join Victorian mental health professionals in a series of rolling strikes in a bid to resolve an industrial dispute with the state government.
Members of the Health and Community Services Union (HACSU), the union representing Victoria’s mental health workers, will take part in 90 work stoppages in 23 days unless an agreement can be reached.
The action began last week, with two
stoppages at Melbourne Health (Northern) in Epping.
More are scheduled over the next two weeks.
HACSU state secretary Lloyd Williams said mental health workers had become frustrated after seven months of negotiations.
“The state government just doesn’t seem to be listening,” he said.
He said negotiations were focused on staffing and workload issues, as well as a
pay increase of six per cent a year over three years.
Sarah Barnard, a psychiatric nurse for 32 years, took part in Friday’s stop-work at Austin Health.
She said it was not widely understood that mental health professionals were not covered by the industrial agreement recently reached between nurses and the state government.
“The police got theirs, the nurses got theirs and now they are up to the teachers,” she said.
“But it feels like there has been very little interest [from the state government] in mental health.”
She said no one wanted to stop work, but felt the strikes were necessary to win conditions that would improve patient care.
Michael Moore, a spokesman for Mental Health Minister Mary Wooldridge, said the government wanted to reach a new agreement as soon as possible.
“The Coalition government highly respects and values the critical role of the entire public mental health workforce,” he said.
