Fighting for workload and pay justice at La Trobe's School of Nursing & Midwifery and Rural Health

Aimee Hulbert, Organiser, La Trobe University

Federal Labor MP Ged Kearney threw her considerable nursing and unionist weight behind the NTEU's campaign at La Trobe's School of Nursing & Midwifery and Rural Health around workload allocation and pay rates for casuals. As a result of our campaign, the Heads of Schools have agreed to a consultation process.

Fear of wage theft

In the final semester of 2020, a group of activists and delegates at La Trobe approached the local NTEU Branch for help with the campaign. As we all know, wage theft is not uncommon in the university sector; the cynic in me feels that wage theft is simply a part of the business strategies for many industries.

The first part of the campaign involved the School members coming together to discuss their concerns and next steps. They then established a working group and created a survey designed to collect data on how workers were being impacted across both Schools.

The survey went out to all workers who worked in the discipline of Nursing & Midwifery and Rural Health. The idea was simple, obtain the data to see if it backed up the claim that people are overworked and, in some cases, underpaid. Not surprisingly, the data did back up that claim.

Coming to the table

The next step was to request a meeting with both Heads of School to discuss these problems and come to a solution. The requests were reasonable, pay casual staff for the work they do, correctly categorise the type of work completed, and ensure that workload plans reflect the actual workload.

Initially, the Heads of both the School of Nursing & Midwifery and Rural Health refused to respond to requests to meet. Not to be easily put off the members regrouped and decided collectively that it would be a good idea to see if Ged Kearney MP would like to come and have a discussion with them.

Before Ged Kearney became the popular federal member for Cooper, she was a nurse who served as Assistant Secretary, Federal President and Victorian Branch President of the ANMF before being appointed Federal Secretary. Not to mention she is also a former President of the ACTU.

Ged, of course, agreed to meet with the workers across La Trobe's Nursing & Midwifery and Rural Health. This invigorated our activists and delegates who went back to their workplace and encouraged more people to attend the meeting. Impacted workers from across all La Trobe campuses participated in the meeting and agreed as a group to give the Heads of both Schools a second chance to 'come to the party' so to speak.

Consultation process

Once word got back to the Heads of School that union members in the School of Nursing & Midwifery and Rural Health were not going to walk away silently, they agreed to a consultation process in semester one of 2021.

The fight is not over, but workers across La Trobe's School of Nursing & Midwifery and Rural Health will not take this lying down.

We look forward to working with the Heads of La Trobe's School of Nursing & Midwifery and Rural Health to make sure workers are not only paid for all the work they do but are paid under the correct classification. ◆

Image: Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels