Healthscope have postponed bargaining, originally scheduled on Wednesday, until further notice.

They claim that this is because they want to have face to face sessions with you to explain how the Workload Consultative Committee (WCC) clause will work and how you can have input into the decisions around workloads.

We suspect this really just means Healthscope does not believe what your union reps are telling them, since we’ve told them your concerns repeatedly over the five-month bargaining period.

Staffing levels are a significant problem. It is unsafe and unacceptable to keep the nurse-patient ratio at 1 to 10 on night shifts and ignore the acuities of patients – in effect, acuity is rarely considered as a reason to get in additional staff or keep casuals/agency staff on the shift if the in-patients are below the ratio.

Over the past five months, we’ve underlined staffing ratios time and again, while shockingly at the last meeting their negotiators tried to say we haven’t raised this as a concern - this is blatantly untrue.

We do agree there has been some progress in the draft WCC clause but putting the workloads to a ‘test’ under the WCC clause is unlikely to change much in the short term.

If you go to the meeting with management tomorrow, tell them how you really feel: Let them know that you would prefer that they talk to your union and that you won’t agree to a pay rise of less than 2%, especially without a firm commitment to extra staffing.

We’re keen to hear from you about these meetings, so please get in touch via email at assist@hacsu.com.au or by phoning 1300 880 032.