Collectors Agreement Withdrawn by Company

The proposed collectors’ agreement applying to Dorevitch Pathology and Gippsland Pathology has been withdrawn by Symbion Health.

As with the couriers’ agreement (also withdrawn by the company) Commissioner Gooley of Fair Work Australia raised a number of questions about the Agreement with the employer. The Union also put detailed written submissions in relation to defects in both the agreement itself and in the process of voting on the agreement.

The agreement would have cut redundancy pay, long service leave, sick leave and bereavement leave entitlements, among other reductions in current terms and conditions of collectors. Those entitlements now remain in place.

The question of the approval of the agreement was supposed to be argued in Fair Work Australia today (Wednesday 28 June 2010). In the event the company simply withdrew the agreement and did not provide any response to the issues which were raised by either the Commissioner or the Union.

New “Agreements”?  - Same Old Dodgy Deal!

Have I got a deal for you ...

We hear that Symbion Health management is now set to attempt another strategy, having failed to get 5 separate agreements* up across the businesses in Victoria, all of which would have cut staff’s terms and conditions, and none of which were negotiated with the Union. (* Scientists, Technicians, Support Staff, Couriers and Collectors Agreements)

Management has been visiting regional laboratories and has apparently been canvassing the idea of separate agreements to cover different laboratories, presumably covering all staff. Members also report that veiled threats have also been made about sending work to Melbourne.

Management at Symbion Health/Specialist Diagnostic Services  is still intent on paying staff less than all other private pathology providers and still intent on cutting sick leave, bereavement leave, redundancy pay and other conditions, reducing on call payments and taking away the right to have disputes arbitrated by FWA.

So it is the same old, same old attempt to reduce terms and conditions of employment, just in a different package. In our view no amount of money is worth the loss of core conditions of employment.

We will be watching developments, and will respond when appropriate. We remind members about what is at stake – your terms and conditions of employment.

Symbion Health remains the outlier in the private pathology industry in Victoria, with agreement having been reached by the MSAV with the three other major private providers (Melbourne Pathology, Healthscope Pathology (Gribbles) and St John of God Pathology) which have all maintained existing terms and conditions of employment and delivered wage increases.

Now the new MSAV/VPA/AHP website is up and running, we encourage members who don’t already have access to the member-only pages to create an account.

Just select Create an account at the bottom of the left-hand menu and complete the small form. Your access should be approved within two working days.

Members who already have access are encouraged to login, select Your Details on the User Menu and check your “profile”. You are now able to set language, editor and time zone as well as updating your email address and password for the website. Please note, this will not update your details in our member database – you will need to advise us separately by email, fax or returning the form on the back of your membership renewal.

Captha protection (transcribing letters and numbers from an image) has been added to a number of areas where visitor input is allowed, to protect the site from spam and hacking. Agreements in the Documents area of the member only pages have been reorganized into public sector, private sector and private pathology agreements.

Advised to take out Own Policy

We have been contacted by a number of members who are under the misapprehension that employer professional indemnity insurance policies will meet the very strict requirements of the Psychology Board of Australia.

In particular some members are under the mistaken impression that if they work at Southern Health or Austin Health that the employer’s group policy will satisfy the requirements of the Board.

This is not the case. Further, we think it highly unlikely that any employer group policy will comply with the Board’s mandatory requirements.

All VPA members are advised that you should immediately take out your own PII policy if you have not already done so.

This advice applies whether or not you do any private practice work, and whether or not you are in paid employment only.

Discussions about provision of relief cover for a Pharmacist at MH who took on responsibility for 10 palliative beds on top of her full time BMT role on a 3 month temporary basis (which has now stretched to 5 months) did not succeed in fixing the problem.

As a result, the AHP sought the assistance of FWA on Thursday to ensure that the well-being of the pharmacist did not continue to be compromised by unreasonable levels of overtime.

MH has agreed to find solutions for cover by 5 July 2010 and to review the palliative care workload over the next month to determine the ability of the department to cover this work on an ongoing basis.  Crucial to this dispute was the records of overtime maintained by the pharmacist concerned.

AHP members are reminded to record their ACTUAL hours of work on their timesheets. This is particularly at Melbourne Health where MH is seeking to manipulate workloads rather than employing additional staff, despite acknowledgements that our members are being worked excessively hard.

We understand form members that the Red Cross Blood Service is about to notify scientists of new classifications and ‘job families’ to which they have been allocated by Red Cross HR.

Professional Insurance Arrangements Need to be in Place by 1 July 2010

As previously advised, the Psychology Board of Australia requires registered psychologists to have professional indemnity insurance which meets the requirements of the new national Board.

These requirements are NEW and come into effect from 1 JULY 2010.

You should immediately take out your own PII policy if you have not already done so.

The VPA recommends the IH Group’s policy which is more competitive that AON. Unlike the APS arrangement with AON, the VPA does not receive any payments from the insurer when members take out a policy. All savings are passed on to members.

Go to www.vicpsych.org.au and click on the IH Group button on the right hand side.

As previously advised, the Psychology Board of Australia did not include Union group policies as meeting the new PII requirements. We will continue with our efforts to have the Board recognise Union group policies, as other national health professional boards do. In the meantime, the onus in on you to make sure that you have a policy in place.

Pay your MSAV/VPA/AHP Subs before the 30 June 2010 and claim your fees in this year’s tax return.

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