Our recent on-line survey of members priorities for our next round of enterprise bargaining has produced some interesting but not surprising results.

One of the most significant problems was cited as workloads:

• 81.3% said their workload had increased over the last three years.
• 53.7% say their job has changed significantly over the last 3 years.
• 89% reported doing unpaid overtime. Of these, 64% finish late or work through meal breaks; 48% work 1-3 hours unpaid overtime pw; 14.4% do more than 5 hours unpaid overtime pw.
• Only 11.3% reported working paid overtime.
• Respondents wanted the problem resolved with more staffing, more senior staff/supervisors and prompt replacement of staff on leave amongst other measures.

Another high priority problem is rates of pay being very low by interstate comparisons. This applies to all of our disciplines but especially to medical physicists’ rates which at some points in the scale lag 70% behind those in NSW! The discrepancy between NSW and Victorian public sector rates of pay for science-based professions are now so glaring that the Victorian Government must accept responsibility for closing the gap or it will see an exodus of highly qualified professionals out of the health system.

The public sector log of claims will be circulated next week. Watch for the Link in the Stat Report.