NSW: Nurses lose wages for protest over pay, plan for o/t bans

AAP General News (Australia)
08-22-2001
NSW: Nurses lose wages for protest over pay, plan for o/t bans

By Natalie Davison, Industrial Reporter

SYDNEY, Aug 22 AAP - NSW nurses are considering overtime bans in theatres as part of
an ongoing industrial campaign for higher pay and more staff.

About 500 nurses from two of Sydney's biggest hospitals were today told their pay would
be docked for taking part in a union protest over the staffing and pay issue.

The Central Area Health Service (CSAHS) confirmed that nurses at Royal Prince Alfred
and Concord hospitals would be docked for taking part in the action.

"That's the general practice if they participate in stopwork action," a spokeswoman said.

But NSW Nurses Association secretary Sandra Moait said the CSAHS was the first health
authority to deduct wages for taking part in the protests and showed how small-minded
management was.

Ms Moait said nurses were expected to retaliate by imposing overtime bans.

A series of other hospital protests have been held in Sydney's north and west in the
past two weeks.

Nurses have already imposed state-wide revenue-collection bans and threatened to escalate
their action if the state government does not grant them a one-off pay rise.

Ms Moait said staff at Liverpool Hospital in Sydney's south-west were planning a two-hour
stopwork from 1.30pm tomorrow.

She said theatre staff, who normally work a lot of overtime, had asked hospital management
if they could take lieu time to participate in the action but were refused.

"The local branch has now foreshadowed overtime bans," Ms Moait said.

A Liverpool hospital spokesman would not comment on the threat of overtime bans but
confirmed that all rostered staff who attended the stopwork would be docked two hours
pay.

"I've told the nurses to wear this like a badge of pride," Ms Moait said.

"If docking a nurse 50 dollars or whatever is the way the area health service responds,
then they may find they are faced with overtime bans."

Unions are campaigning for a pay rise, saying that more money would entice nurses back
into the profession and plug the 1,500 nursing vacancies in NSW.

The state government has so far rejected any call for a pay increase, saying nurses
are locked into a general public sector pay rise which still has three years to expire.

A CSAHS spokeswoman said that today's action at Concord and RPA had minimal impact
on patient care and no operations were cancelled.

AAP nd/hu/br

KEYWORD: NURSES NSW NIGHTLEAD

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