United Voice News
Health Support Workers Vote Up Pay Offer in Win Over State Government
In meetings across the state this week, Health Support Workers in government hospitals have voted to accept the 2 year pay offer of 7%.
Jim Ferguson, Health Services Assistant at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital said of the deal: “While other hospital employees like nurses and doctors got bigger pay rises than us, we won much more than the government wanted to give us.”
“We beat them at every step, they wanted to remove so many of our conditions, including the no-privatisation clause, in the end they didn’t get anything that they wanted. The 2 year deal puts us in a good position for the next negotiations, we are the lowest paid workers and we need to close that gap.”
Support workers will receive a pay rise of 7% over the two year agreement and have stared down an aggressive attempt by the government to strip conditions and increase the casualisation of the hospital workforce.
The State Government was forced to agree to maintain all current conditions in the agreement, including maintaining the no-privatisation clause in our existing agreement.
“The pay rise is not as much as the $50 per week our members were seeking, to help cover the crippling costs of rising bills, but it is much more that the 5.75% the government was originally offering.” Dave Kelly Secretary LHMU
However, within hours of negotiating this agreement the government stated that notwithstanding the clause they would press ahead with their plans to privatise Fiona Stanley Hospital.
Dave Kelly, “It just goes to show that you cannot trust this government, they will do and say anything to get what they want. We will continue to fight the government on their plans to privatise our hospitals. The community does not like it and they expect hospitals to be publicly owned and run.”
