Timing of ballots

The time line for balloting of the public sector agreement is as follows:

• All eligible employees should have been given access to the Agreement by employers by Friday 18 December 2009.
• Ballots of eligible employees to be conducted between 18 – 29 January 2010.

It is important that ballots are not held early as this could result in the Commission being unable to approve the Agreement for your health service.

If your employer has already held a vote or told you that they intend to do so on a date before 18 or after 29 January 2010, please point out to them that they are not complying with the process agreed between the Union and the VHIA and that they should ring Richard Corboy at the VHIA for clarification. Please also let this office know ASAP.

STOP PRESS: We are informed by a member that Eastern Health is claiming to staff that it has negotiated with this Union for their ballot(s) to be held outside the above dates. This is completely untrue and we have advised Eastern Health accordingly and will seek that the ballot be re-run.

Form of The Ballot

Members have asked whether voting should be by secret ballot. The answer is not necessarily. Our agreement with the VHIA is that voting should be by show of hands where possible but that email may be more appropriate in smaller health services. This is in line with past practice which appears to have been unproblematic.

However, it is important that only persons to be covered by the proposed agreement vote and that there is one person, one vote; any system of email voting must ensure that this is the case. Any system of voting which allows staff to download ballot papers from web sites without controls to prevent unauthorised voting is clearly invalid.

PUBLIC SECTOR RECLASSIFICATIONS

The 2008 public sector Heads of Agreement provides that the following classifications shall be reviewed on work value grounds.

• Dietitians
• Audiologists
• Quality and IT Officers and Clinical Trial Coordinators
• Principal Scientist and Laboratory Manager positions
• Pharmacists
• Psychologists
• Perfusionists