We are refocusing from a ‘well person’ to a‘well workplace’. This means shifting away frommaking it the individual’s responsibility totake care of themselves, towards identifyinglarger, systemic and cultural issues and takingcollective action to address them.AMA Victoria has alsomade significant gains in theEnterprise Agreement forDoctors in Training. Theseinclude increasing the noticeperiod for rosters from 14to 28 days; securing equalaccess to paid parental leaveif both parents are doctors inthe Victorian public system;requiring hospitals to pay DiTfor an hour’s pay for everyovernight call they take; andmaking further progresstowards introducing longerterm contracts.Improving the workenvironment for specialists isalso a focus — most notablythrough overtime gains forfractional doctors in theEnterprise Agreement forSpecialists. Two big focuseshere are on equity of payand entitlements betweenfractional and full-time doctors.To this end, AMA Victoria hasreached agreement on theestablishment of a ministerialreview that will take placeearly next year.AMA Victoria is alsoprogressing the DiT classaction, which is a legal actionagainst most Victorian healthservices for underpayment ofovertime. Victoria has 37 healthservices covered by the DiTEnterprise Agreement, and eachwill have proceedings broughtagainst it. So far, actions havebeen submitted against 10hospitals. If successful, affectedDiT stand to be back paid for upto six years’ unpaid overtime.“Many of these changesare arguably coming fromthe bottom-up, not the topdown,” says Grant. “In the pastfew years, we have observeda dramatic increase in thenumber of junior doctors whoare willing to speak up aboutworkplace bullying, stressand burn out.”The new agreements wereapproved on 27 October(Specialists) and 2 November(DiT) and the process oftransitioning to the new termsand conditions is now underway.AMA/ASMOF Victoria willmeet with every healthservice to talk through theirimplementation plans andmonitor their progress.Doctors in trainingand specialists,can you help toimprove yourworkplaceenvironment?––Become activelyengaged with AMAVictoria by attendingmeetings, responding tosurveys, or contactingthe Workplace Relationsteam directly––—Together we bargain,divided we beg—If you have a workplacerelations issue you wouldlike to discuss, please contactamavic@amavic.com.au—VI CD O C SU M M ER 202251
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