Vic: Nurses to vote over on going dispute

AAP General News (Australia)
08-16-2000
Vic: Nurses to vote over on going dispute

MELBOURNE, Aug 16 AAP - Thousands of Victorian nurses campaigning for better wages
and conditions will decide tomorrow whether to lift work bans that are crippling the state's
hospital system.

A week ago, the same nurses voted at a stopwork meeting to close up to 2,000 hospital
beds along with other industrial action.

At Melbourne's Festival Hall tomorrow they must decide whether their dispute should
be arbitrated by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC).

The Australian Nursing Federation's (ANF) state branch council has unanimously endorsed
an AIRC recommendation that the dispute be arbitrated.

And the council will recommend the nurses vote to accept that course of action and lift the bans.

Even so, ANF state secretary Belinda Morieson (Morieson) insists "it is up to members".

The Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) estimates more than 1,300 hospital beds have
been closed across the state.

The state government has treated the ANF's demand for a 24 per cent payrise with disdain
and has offered only nine per cent.

Ms Morieson said one benefit of submitting to arbitration was that the AIRC had promised
to individually address every point of the ANF's 105-point claim.

Victorian Premier Steve Bracks yesterday urged nurses to heed the advice of the industrial
umpire and agree to arbitration.

"Obviously there is going to be a fair bit of discussion on this - 24 per cent is too
high, frankly, way too high," he told reporters.

But the government would make a very good case for a "moderate, sensible wage outcome"

which would not lead to flow-on pay claims in other industry sectors, he said.

AAP hmg/jlw/it/de

KEYWORD: NURSES VIC (CARRIED EARLIER)

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