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The Australian Nursing & Midwifery Federation’s Victorian branch has dismissed claims by the state’s opposition health spokesperson that the union got everything it wanted out of last week’s deal to resolve enterprise agreement negotiations.
ANMF's Victorian branch recommended the state government’s offer to a statewide members meeting on Thursday afternoon at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. Victorian opposition health spokesperson Mary Wooldridge called the deal generous and expensive.
Wooldridge said: “The fact that the nurses’ union is prepared to agree to a deal lasting eight years is a sure sign they’ve gotten everything they wanted out of this government.”
ANMF Vic branch secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick said that comment was inaccurate. “No one in enterprise agreement negotiations ends up with achieving everything that they want.”
The agreement delivers annualised base increases of 2.5 per cent a year in line with the government’s fair pay guide and .5 per cent for an agreed service delivery partnership plan.
The union said bedside nurses in Victoria would now have the same take-home pay as their NSW counterparts. Fitzpatrick said: “Those bedside nurses will receive wage increases between 3 and 15 per cent.”
Click below to hear more from Lisa Fitzpatrick.
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