Late Friday afternoon, employees at the Bayview Street clinic in Burnie received an email from their Regional Manager, Fiona Arthur, saying the clinic would temporarily close this coming Monday, 24 January.

Fiona also said:

"Staff rostered to Bayview Street across all workgroups may be temporarily re-allocated to alternate site (if in line with patient volume at alternate site) or requested to access paid annual leave (or long service leave), or alternatively, take voluntary leave without pay. Rosters will be updated shortly to reflect this temporary closure and, if you are impacted by this change, your manager will contact you to discuss if you would prefer to access your accrued paid leave for these dates or request voluntary leave without pay."

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We’ve written to Fiona telling her that we do not believe the employer has met its consultation requirement and, in fact, they may be in breach of the relevant entitlements to request workers use their leave to cover a period of closure.

We’ve told Fiona that if those workers affected cannot be accommodated at other Burnie facilities, they should be paid as per their contract and their enterprise agreement.

We’ll meet with management tomorrow to discuss our concerns.

We’ll update you after tomorrow’s meeting. If you have any other concerns or questions about the issue, please give HACSUassist a call on 1300 880 032.