By PEACE IJIYERA
AROUND 70 allied health workers and members of the Health Services Union (HSU) and Victorian Allied Health Professionals Association (VAHPA) from Latrobe Regional Health (LRH), protested on the corner of Princes Freeway and Village Avenue last Friday, demanding better pay and conditions.
Staggering demonstrations between the hours of 12pm and 2pm, workers including physiotherapists, radiation therapists, social workers, speech therapists, podiatrists and occupational therapists walked off the job.
Not satisfied with previous offers of between 19 and 21 per cent, allied health workers are seeking a pay increase of 36 per cent over three years.
Delegate from LRH, Bess McDougall, said workers had been bargaining for an agreement for nearly a year.
“We’re out here today because we are currently fighting for better pay and conditions for all allied health staff across public hospitals in Victoria,” she said.
“We don’t take this strike action lightly. We’ve been bargaining now for 11 months … and we haven’t had a decent offer from the government yet.
“Our wages have gone backwards in the last four or five years. It’s been outpaced by inflation.
“And we’re just asking to be paid fairly for the specialised work that we bring to public hospitals.”
Originally, workers were supposed to begin the protest on the corner of the freeway and then make their way to then Health Minister, Harriet Shing’s Morwell office. However, no protest action took place at the Commercial Road address as the news of Ms Shing’s retirement broke the day before.
Workers were overwhelmed with support from vehicles honking as they drove by.
More than just increasing pay, VAHPA executive officer, Andrew Hewat told the Express that the protests cover three key categories.
“The central one is the wages claim and we have a significant ask in terms of improving the wages, but then it’s more than just the wages,” he said.
“We’ve also got a significant claim around dealing with workload issues because that’s becoming a serious problem, leading to burnout and loss of people leaving the sector.
“And the third one is, we need to modernise and bring up to date several areas of our classification structure. So, they’re the three ticket items that we’re still dealing with.”
Ms McDougall wants the state government to back their desires to have a “world-class health system”, saying allied health is a huge part of the public healthcare system.
“And it doesn’t work without us. Like hospitals would grind to a halt without us and we would just like to be recognised for what we bring to the healthcare system.”
She also explained that allied health workers don’t have systems in place that limit their workload, unlike nurses who have ratios.
Mr Hewat said he was “surprised” to hear the news of Ms Shing’s plans to step down, and hopes that the new Premier not only comes with new promises; but actions.
“It’s (the protests) aimed at the government in general. But obviously the buck stops with the Premier (Ben Carroll). He’s obviously new to the office, so we’re hoping he’ll come in with an attitude of trying to deal with the unresolved enterprise bargaining negotiations that are underway.
“And we’re hoping that will provide some motivation to get us a deal that we can take to our members,” he said.
