AMA VICDOC Autumn 2024 - Magazine - Page 49
We are refocusing from a ‘well person’ to a
‘well workplace’. This means shifting away from
making it the individual’s responsibility to
take care of themselves, towards identifying
larger, systemic and cultural issues and taking
collective action to address them.
AMA Victoria has also
made significant gains in the
Enterprise Agreement for
Doctors in Training. These
include increasing the notice
period for rosters from 14
to 28 days; securing equal
access to paid parental leave
if both parents are doctors in
the Victorian public system;
requiring hospitals to pay DiT
for an hour’s pay for every
overnight call they take; and
making further progress
towards introducing longer
term contracts.
Improving the work
environment for specialists is
also a focus — most notably
through overtime gains for
fractional doctors in the
Enterprise Agreement for
Specialists. Two big focuses
here are on equity of pay
and entitlements between
fractional and full-time doctors.
To this end, AMA Victoria has
reached agreement on the
establishment of a ministerial
review that will take place
early next year.
AMA Victoria is also
progressing the DiT class
action, which is a legal action
against most Victorian health
services for underpayment of
overtime. Victoria has 37 health
services covered by the DiT
Enterprise Agreement, and each
will have proceedings brought
against it. So far, actions have
been submitted against 10
hospitals. If successful, affected
DiT stand to be back paid for up
to six years’ unpaid overtime.
“Many of these changes
are arguably coming from
the bottom-up, not the topdown,” says Grant. “In the past
few years, we have observed
a dramatic increase in the
number of junior doctors who
are willing to speak up about
workplace bullying, stress
and burn out.”
The new agreements were
approved on 27 October
(Specialists) and 2 November
(DiT) and the process of
transitioning to the new terms
and conditions is now underway.
AMA/ASMOF Victoria will
meet with every health
service to talk through their
implementation plans and
monitor their progress.
Doctors in training
and specialists,
can you help to
improve your
workplace
environment?
––
Become actively
engaged with AMA
Victoria by attending
meetings, responding to
surveys, or contacting
the Workplace Relations
team directly
––
—
Together we bargain,
divided we beg
—
If you have a workplace
relations issue you would
like to discuss, please contact
amavic@amavic.com.au
—
VI CD O C SU M M ER 2022
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