Nurses make new pay claims
The nurses' union is seeking a $1000 annual "retention bonus" for each of its permanent members, the rollback of hospital parking fees to 2010 levels and a guarantee that future parking fee rises will be limited to inflation.
The claims are on top of the 14.2 per cent pay rise the Australian Nursing Federation extracted from the State Government during last year's election campaign - a deal Health Minister Kim Hames has told the industrial umpire was achieved using "illegitimate pressure".
It is understood the Government does not intend to scupper the 14.2 per cent pay rise. However, it will argue in the WA Industrial Relations Commission that the deal could be voided if it proved the "illegitimate pressure" caused it to agree to the over-the-odds pay deal because it had no practical choice.
The broadsides are contained in a submission to the WAIRC, which is arbitrating some outstanding issues between the Government and the ANF.
Though nurses got a 5 per cent pay rise on July 1 - with rises of 4 per cent and 5 per cent to come - a new industrial agreement has not been finalised.
The pay deal flowed from an offer by Department of Premier and Cabinet boss Peter Conran to the ANF on February 24 last year - more than four months before the nurses' existing deal expired and during the caretaker period in the lead-up to the election.
It included a guarantee nurses would lose no conditions.
At the time, some nurses had begun to close hospital beds in defiance of WAIRC orders, act-ions the Health Department said endangered the safety of patients.
The offer was well above the Government's then-wages policy, which said no above-inflation pay rises would be awarded without productivity trade-offs, in which case nurses would be entitled to 8.5 per cent over three years.
As well as the retention bonus and parking claims, the ANF wants provisions for the payout of accumulated professional development leave, an option to cash out personal leave, new provisions for workers compensation, a review of housing availability and standards for rural and remote nurses and midwives, and a joint ANF-Health Department committee to help graduating nurses find jobs.
In his WAIRC submission, Dr Hames said the ANF's claims should not be entertained because the "no loss of conditions" clause in Mr Conran's offer meant the Government was unable to reasonably negotiate trade-offs.
"The evidence will be that pay increases of the size given as part of the Conran agreement are well above those to which the Government would typically agree without there being productivity trade-offs or changes to conditions," Dr Hames said.
"The Government intends to argue that the commission should not grant any of the claims made by the ANF (other than those agreed to) on the basis it is not fair and reasonable for a party to achieve an outcome by illegitimate pressure where they win significant pay increases with no loss of conditions and are then able to pursue further claims with the other side being unable to seek balancing changes to conditions."
Dr Hames said the Government would argue it felt it had "no realistic choice in all of the circumstances but to agree to the ANF's demands".
ANF State secretary Mark Olson said the Health Department had failed to genuinely negotiate on its outstanding claims, which under Mr Conran's offer were to be arbitrated if no agreement could be reached by June 30 last year.
