After the last bargaining meeting being bogged down in procedural discussions, your Health Services Union bargaining team pushed for management to provide a set agenda for bargaining meetings. This has proven to be effective as we finally have commenced actual negotiations.

At last Thursday’s meeting, your HSU bargaining team made its presence known. The HSU pushed to remove potential ambiguity in the wording of some clauses to ensure workers’ rights are protected. For instance, SNP agreed to drop a proposed change which would have meant they would no longer have an obligation to keep written records of disciplinary counselling or provide a copy of the record to you and allow a response before going on file.

We advocated for future pay increases to be backdated to the expiry of the last "Good Faith Percentage Pay Increase". This would mean SNP employees won’t be disadvantaged if there are delays with the bargaining process.

We also presented our HSU Log of Claims (which you can view here), underpinned by the key principle that the Health Services Union bargains to ensure that conditions are improved, and all workers are better off through these negotiations.

The next bargaining meeting will discuss Section 3 of the proposed SNP CWA “your role and responsibilities”, which includes definitions of employment (part time, casual etc), probation and uniform allowances.

We will be having our last Zoom meeting tonight at 6:30pm before we break for Christmas.

Contact Bec Luxton for the zoom link, and if you are interested in joining one of the teams: 0428 586 335 or [E-Mail not displayed]

If you know someone who isn’t a union member, let them know we are always stronger together. Let them know what HSU members want to achieve at SNP and that we want them to be part of it. New members can join at www.hsu.asn.au or by calling 1300 478 679.