VAHPA has had yet another win for members. This time by compelling Victorian Public Hospitals to finalise all outstanding payments to members for entitlements owing from the Christmas and New Year public holidays.
Our public holidays provisions, like many public holiday provisions, are a continual source of confusion for employers and employees alike.
Case in point, the Christmas Day public holiday last year. Christmas Day 2016 was on a Sunday (25 December of course) and was consequently not declared to be a public holiday. The Victorian Government declared Tuesday the 27 December to be the substitute public holiday instead. This was a major issue for those working on Christmas day as you can well imagine.
Finally, after a concerted union push, the government took the step of declaring Christmas day, despite it being on a Sunday, a public holiday. This meant that there were two public holidays for Christmas Day.
This however did not fix the problem. Confusion continued and a significant number of VAHPA member were not properly remunerated for 25 and/or 27 December.
VAHPA has finally managed to resolve this convoluted affair—after many prolonged meetings with the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the Victorian Industrial Hospitals’ Association (VHIA)—and proper payment has now been guaranteed for all relevant public sector employees.
The actual schedule for payment is long and complicated. If you are of the view that you have not been paid properly for this period, you should raise the issue with management at your hospital. Payroll will have been provided with a detailed breakdown of how the payments are to apply by the VHIA. If this does not rectify the situation, please contact VAHPA on 1300 322 917 or info@vahpa.asn.au