Page 207 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 13 February 1991
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Nurses' strike just an excuse for a union/management showdown.
That is what this was all about; it was about Mr Humphries demonstrating to his constituency that he was capable of taking on the unions. I will show, as I work through this issue, that it was a stupid action for the Government to be involved in and that it led to an end that was available at the outset. It was about the Government's decision to reduce the 10-hour shift at the Royal Canberra Hospital. The Government decided very early that it was going to do that without regard to custom and practice in industrial relations and all those matters; without regard to the workers; without regard to proper consultation processes; and, in particular, without regard to the wage-fixing principles which were in place at the time - in other words, in complete ignorance of the facts of life. All that the Government was interested in was a philosophical position where it could take on a section of the trade union movement.
Of course, as has been shown by the passage of time, the Government failed. In terms of industrial relations, the Government was shown to be absolutely useless. One of the most important things which demonstrated the weakness of the Government's approach on this issue was a headline in the Canberra Times of 13 January, well into the dispute when this Government was arguing about cutting the wages and conditions of nurses. The article reads:
Administrative positions with annual salaries totalling almost $750,000 have been advertised for the ACT Department of Community Services and Health since mid-December, at a time when the ACT Government is pledged to trim the health bureaucracy in line with the ACT Budget and the Kearney Report on health services in the Territory.
What a ridiculous thing to do in the middle of an industrial dispute when the Government is trying to rip wages and conditions from workers in the hospital system. The Minister said, "I will take that 10-hour shift off these nurses; you had better believe it". Of course, the industrial disquiet that developed as time went on can be shown to be very serious and leading to very serious disruption in our hospitals. On Wednesday, 10 January, there was a stop-work meeting to demonstrate support for the campaign; on 12 January there was a walk-out of a director of nursing's roster options meeting, as they moved on the nurses; on 19 January there were bans on rotating night duty to day duty, and so on; on Monday, 22 January, there was a stop-work meeting which resolved to escalate bans, all because of this Minister's handling of the issue - - -
Mr Duby: For the record, put which year.
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