It has come to the Union’s attention that Monash Health has brought in new machinery along with changes across Pathology.
But as Monash Health proceeds with these changes they have failed to give the Union impact statements about how these instrument changes require retraining and whether there will changes to the work flow in laboratories.
Here is an extract of the dispute the Union has lodged with FWC (listed for 29 October)
The employer has introduced changes to the employee’s work place in the form of instrumentation and capital works renovations seriously affecting workflow that have had a significant impact on Union members employed as scientists, without following customary processes of providing a written impact statement. Written notification and provision of information relevant to the changes is required under the Enterprise agreement.
Routine staff meetings have also been reduced so that staff have been unable to voice workload concerns at the workplace level.
In the laboratory at Clayton, Employees have reported to the Union that training on new equipment is not backfilled so that scientists not on a training shift are effectively expected to do double the work leading to concerns about stress and errors. Additionally the physical location of the instruments requires staff to move unreasonable distances and in the cases of urgent blood testing staff are reporting OHS concerns with egress to and from instruments that have been placed a wide distance apart.
The Senior staff assigned to implementation of new instruments and oversight of renovations has not been backfilled and there is no manager at the workplace level to troubleshoot issues arising from the changes nor to provide consultation.
The Union has met with Monash Health representatives and were given an undertaking that impact statements will be sent to the Union. But Monash Health thinks that it can continue to roll out the changes while it undertakes consultation. Clearly this is unacceptable and the Union will continue to fight to ensure that the change processes Monash Health were meant to go through in the first place are adhered to.
