Next Tuesday the Union is meeting with representatives of St Vincent’s Health and the VHIA to discuss the accumulation of sick leave entitlements and the Income Protection Plan that is currently in operation at St Vincent’s Health.

St Vincent’s Health has been applying an income protection scheme in lieu of providing full entitlements to sick leave. This arrangement was entered into with St Vincent’s Health in the 1994 EBA. The sick leave accrual at St Vincent’s Health is only 91.2 hours pa compared to the Award entitlement of:

121 hours 36 minutes in the 1st year of service136 hours and 48 minutes in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th years of service

190 hours in the 5th and following years of service

Some members have expressed their grievance with this trade off and want the award sick leave accruals reintroduced. This issue has become pressing due to the drafting of a comprehensive agreement following the resolution of the public sector EBA matters last year. Since then we have been working on an agreement which will incorporate the award, the 2008 Heads of Agreement and all existing certified agreements and organisational change agreements.

The 1994 agreement only applies to psychologists and scientists (including dietitians and perfusionists) but does not apply to pharmacists. St Vincent’s has been in breach of the award if it has not provided pharmacists with the higher award sick leave entitlements. We will be arranging a meeting of pharmacist members next week to discuss this matter and the crediting of sick leave entitlements.

We have also discovered that some part-timers are not covered by the income protection policy but have still had their sick leave entitlements reduced.

We will be taking up these issues with St Vincent’s next week. Members who work at St Vincent’s with questions or comments should contact Terry O’Loughlin of our offices at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it