Nurses working the overnight 12-hour shift at Canberra Hospital have attacked the ACT Government for failing to fix an “oversight” which has cost them more than $1000 each a year. The nurses and their union claim the Government failed to deliver an across-the-board lift in night penalty rates accepted in negotiations for their latest industrial agreement, leaving some night shift workers being paid less than their colleagues for identical work. Health Minister Simon Corbell has rejected the claim, saying the issue was not raised in negotiations and the Fair Work Commission had confirmed the agreement’s terms were clear. Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation ACT secretary Jenny Miragaya said the federation had made an error in leaving the four-year agreement with terms for a 22.5 per cent penalty rate payment for 12-hour night shift workers, when other night shift workers were bumped up to 25 per cent, but the Government was also implicated. “When we raised it verbally with ACT Health officials in early 2014 it was agreed it was an oversight,” she said. “It just is fundamentally unfair getting paid a lesser penalty.” Three nurses who had worked 12-hour night shifts at the hospital said the latest agreement had been “sold” to them as providing 25 per cent night rates, and claimed the failure to change was part of a Government attempt to move away from 12-hour rostering. “It galls me because they’re so pig-headed, because it’s not saving them much, and it’s their way of trying to get them off the 12-hour shifts,” one nurse said.
