South Australia August Update

Privatisation
On Saturday 17 August, members met at the Adelaide Convention Centre to rally against privatisation.

Coinciding with the Liberal Party State Convention, this rally served to remind the Marshall Government of it's commitment NOT to privatise essential services like trains and trams.

For months now, they have threatened to privatise SA Pathology, and lately have flagged trains and trams as the next public asset to go down that path.

Tell the Government our public services are not for sale:

National Pharmacies

Delegates at National Pharmacies have reached an in-principle agreement with management to secure a new enterprise agreement.

The key issues for members were improving redundancy entitlements, workload management, payment for ‘walk-in’ vaccinations and no reduction in penalty rates.

Here is what our members have achieved:
  • No loss of conditions (no change to penalty rates!)
  • Wage increases
  • 1.25% increase each year of the agreement
  • Vaccination payment
  • Pharmacists paid a higher rate of pay when performing vaccinations, including walk-ins.
  • Breast feeding and baby care provision
  • Redundancy Additional 4 weeks’ pay for employees with at least 10 years’ service
  • Classification Structure:
  • National Pharmacies, in conjunction with PPA will review pharmacists and PIC’s classification structure over the life of the agreement, with a view that any agreed structure will be incorporated in the next enterprise agreement.
  • Workload management
  • The introduction of a process whereby issues can be raised through to the GM -Operations and addressed.

The new agreement will also include:

  • Unpaid Domestic Violence Leave;
  • Right to Request Casual Conversion;
  • Right to be paid overtime instead of TOIL; and
  • Limitations on management to direct employees to take annual leave.

HPS

For sometime now, members across HPS have raised concerns about excessive workloads. If left unchecked, unreasonable workloads can impact services, OHS&W, the ability to mentor and train new pharmacists, and a potential risk to patients.
It was a key issue during enterprise agreement negotiations, and as a result HPS agreed to the establishment of a working group to discuss and find solutions to fix it.