After standing firm for months with industrial action and fighting for a fair deal, Scientists and Technicians at Melbourne Pathology last week voted up a new offer from the company. The new deal that has been struck – the first in over a decade – has a range of major new improvements for our members, including:
- Total pay rise of 13.8% over 4 years
- Additional uplifts for various allowances
- Access to portions of Long Service Leave after 7 years, with significantly more freedom in how it’s used
- New “advanced” classification and pay rate for Grade 1 Scientists
Protections around unreasonable workloads
This is a great achievement, with improvements only won through collective action from members, who demonstrated extraordinary courage and resolve in taking industrial action for months on end.
While we didn’t secure everything we wanted to this time, we made significant inroads and modernised an enterprise agreement that was hideously out of date.
Most importantly, we’ve built a strong and fighting Union of workers at Melbourne Pathology, and our task is far from complete. Now that bargaining has wrapped up, we’ll renew our focus on compliance and supporting members in accessing their new entitlements.
We tip our hats to the members at Melbourne Pathology and their fighting spirit to ensure they got the best possible deal rather than the dud deals management wanted them to roll over and accept. We also want to thank and congratulate the many members from around Victoria who sent their messages of solidarity. Those messages helped members at Melbourne Pathology to keep their fighting spirit alive and to keep fighting for the best possible enterprise agreement.
