Reform and the WA public health system

The Western Australian public health system is in the grips of reform fever. HSU branch secretary Dan Hill discusses what this means for members:

"HSU members working in the public health sector may have heard that the latest target for reform is the workforce and that a Healthy Workforce plan is being developed.

We have a fair idea that the Healthy Workforce plan will be built around more generic clinical positions and more technical and support positions, with more of these being based at non-teaching hospital sites.

Clearly this will have an effect on existing members occupations, but it can also mean opportunities.

The Union response to Healthy Workforce is to say that we will negotiate these issues in the enterprise bargaining agreement in 2006.

Items for the agenda include:

• Claims for retaining older workers;

• More flexible work patterns for members with caring responsibilities to improve retention rates;

• A more robust qualifications and competencies framework for clerical, technical,and support staff linked to a more progressive classification structure;

• Professional rates of pay for all degree-qualified healthworkers and;

• Better workload management strategies.

Excessive workloads are unhealthy, they undermine the work/life balance, and are often evidence of bullying and harassment.

We will seek to establish workplace committees where management and union representatives can properly evaluate workloads, work/life and bullying issues and negotiate better workplaces for our members.

We encourage consultation and information sharing by management with HSU members.

And we urge all members to ensure they are properly consulted and informed about issues which may impact on their jobs and workplaces.

But in the end unions don't consult - we negotiate. We listen to what is proposed and then seek to make changes to the benefit of members.

A good rule of thumb is that where there has been negotiation there is a better outcome than if there had been none."

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Last Modified: Thursday, 12-Jan-2006 14:50:16 EST