St Vincent’s and Mater Branches rescue ADOs

How nurses and midwives at St Vincent’s Health Australia won back their entitlement to ADOs.

Under the enterprise agreements (EA) covering St Vincent’s Private Hospital Darlinghurst, Mater North Sydney and St Vincent’s Griffith, full time nurses have long been entitled to work a monthly roster of 19 x 8-hour days plus one accrued day off (ADO).

The EA also says that by mutual agreement, nurses may opt to work 20 x 7.6-hour days in a 28-day calendar roster with no ADO. However, from 2018, nurses were told the 20 days of 7.6-hour shifts was the only contract on offer.

Similarly, staff who were changing positions and required new contracts (permanent or temporary) were told 7.6-hour shifts were the only option available.

In this way, the right to an ADO was denied to all RNs who signed employment contracts from 2018 through to 2022.

Sinead Keane, assistant secretary of the NSWNMA branch at St Vincent’s Private, said the changed approach to ADOs in 2018 came with a new executive leadership team when “the focus on reducing staffing costs seemed to intensify”.

Members raised the issue during branch discussions over a new EA last year.

“The union was gaining more momentum and a higher profile within the hospital,” Sinead said.

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“People felt more empowered to bring up the ADO issue at meetings or by approaching a branch official.”

To determine the extent of the problem, NSWNMA member leaders at the hospital asked recent starters whether they had been offered a contract with ADOs. None had.

“The branch advised members who wished to keep their ADOs to contact the union office, and to push back and not sign any contract that did not include an ADO,” Sinead said.

Branch officials identified members who had been put on 7.6-hour contracts, told them they were entitled to a monthly ADO, showed them the relevant EBA clause and asked them if they wanted an ADO. All said yes.

The branch got them all to sign a form requesting an ADO roster starting on a common date and lodged the forms with management.

Meanwhile, NSWNMA head office prepared to lodge a dispute with the Fair Work Commission.

Management finally agreed to reinstate ADOs for all RNs who met the criteria and applied for ADOs. Management must now, as a default, offer all new full time starters with a roster with an ADO every 28 days. Failure to do this is a breach of the enterprise agreement provisions.

“We’ve definitely had a win due to constant pressure from the branch pointing out that management was not following the agreement,” Sinead says.

In total, more than 100 nurses across the three sites have got back their ADOs. n