A COUPLE of weeks ago the government announced to the media that it was going to refer our current wages dispute to the Tasmanian Industrial Commission, and then it gave us draft terms of reference around referring all of the public sector agreements, except the Nurses and Midwives Agreement, to the TIC.

‍The TIC referral

We’ve met with other public sector unions and legal experts to talk about the referral and the terms of reference and earlier this week sent our formal response to the Premier ahead of the deadline - and our response is reasonable and the government should accept it.

One of our main issues is that working conditions were left out of the referral, so we’ve made it very clear we need a way to pursue better working conditions as well as much-needed pay rises for public sector workers.

We now wait to hear back from the government, but we've made it clear we’re still open to negotiations and willing to meet at any time to progress things if the government wants to do so.

We’re still extremely frustrated that workers aren't being treated with the respect they deserve and that their employer won't do the simple, fair thing - negotiate in good faith and make a genuine offer - instead of continuing to play games and change its position, causing more chaos in a health system that's already in crisis.

‍Nurses and Midwives Agreement

ANMF nurses recently voted to accept the one-year 2.1% wage offer, while HACSU nurses voted against, so the government made another offer to us late last Friday after it heard the result of our ballot, and we’ve met with government representatives and asked a lot of questions but we’re still waiting for the answers.

We'll keep you posted...  

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