The union for Western Australia’s nurses and midwives has been fined $350,000 for a strike outside state parliament last year that attracted thousands of nurses at the height of a bitter dispute over pay and conditions.
Key points:
- WA’s Australian Nursing Federation could have faced a fine of $36 million
- But both sides agreed last month on a fine of a fraction of that amount
- A pay and conditions dispute is still dragging on, six months after the strike
The state’s Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) had ordered the union not to strike, but the Australian Nursing Federation decided to go ahead in defiance of its order.
Gathered on the steps of parliament in November last year, the crowd of thousands of nurses, including some who had left work, demanded a 5 per cent pay rise.
But their efforts were unsuccessful, with the government refusing to budge on its latest pay offer of an increase between 3 and 4.5 per cent.
ANF faced $36 million fine
WA’s Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) could have faced a fine as large as $36 million for 3,590 individual breaches alleged by the IRC’s registrar.
But both sides last month agreed to an overall fine of less than 1 per cent of that figure at $350,000, with ANF secretary Janet Reah to personally pay a $10,000 fine for failing to appear before the commission on the day of the strike.
The final decision on the fine rested with the IRC, which today agreed with both sides and imposed the $350,000 fine against the union and a $10,000 fine for Ms Reah.
Financial records lodged with the IRC last year showed the ANF was $4.5 million in surplus.
Lawyers for the commission’s registrar had last month said a significant penalty was needed to avoid the ANF, or other unions, seeing breaching the orders as “part and parcel” of industrial campaigns.
At the time, the IRC also suggested it may require the union to promise to follow the law in the future, potentially leaving it liable to a greater penalty if it were to breach the commission’s orders again.
But the ANF’s lawyer, Tim Hammond, said the union would only commit to abiding by the commission’s orders for the duration of the current pay and conditions dispute.
Industrial dispute unresolved
That dispute is still dragging on, more than six months after the rally outside parliament.
Despite the government and ANF still not agreeing on a new pay and conditions deal, the government last year promised to pay nurses the pay rise of between 3 and 4.5 per cent.
That pay increase has already been accepted by about three-quarters of public sector workers, although disputes are continuing with firefighters and police as well.
The government is also starting work to implement nurse-to-patient ratios, beginning with Perth Children’s Hospital.
Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson last month called on the ANF to sign a pay and conditions deal so ratios could be properly implemented.
“Because once the agreement’s in place then we have the mechanism for raising those workplace grievances if there are issues around ratios,” she said.
“Until they sign the agreement they’re not in a position to be able to raise those issues, so it’s important that at some point the ANF come to the party.”