Dorevitch staff strike in Benalla over pay and conditions

Sapna Sisodia, Deb Crowther and Jayne Fothergill joined staff from selected sites across Victoria for three hours in the hope their demands would be listened to.

Ms Crowther said Dorevitch staff across Victoria simply wanted a better pay increase and better working conditions.

“We are skilled, qualified skilled workers,” she said.

“We want to be listened to. We want them to hear us. We want to be valued.”

The walk-off comes after a month of industrial action, including bans limiting processing to one patient blood test per hour.

Staff, who are represented by the Phlebotomists Council of Australia, aim to show their employer they are not prepared to take on more work while being threatened with a return to minimum award wages.

PCA has been negotiating in good faith with Dorevitch for the past year.

A PCA spokesperson said that during that time, the employer had put an unacceptable agreement to employees on three separate occasions, and workers had decisively rejected it each time.

“This has occurred even after the employer offered lower-paid workers a sign-on bonus, an approach seen as a tactical attempt to pressure financially vulnerable employees into accepting a substandard deal,” the spokesperson said.

Pathology collectors were recently recognised by the Fair Work Commission as having been historically undervalued in the Gender Undervaluation Review of the federal award.

That finding led to their reclassification and an increase to the base award wage.

Workers say some employers were now attempting to use that award increase to absorb and offset the additional value of enterprise agreement conditions previously negotiated with employees, rather than genuinely improving wages and conditions.

“They argue this sends a deeply unfair message,” the spokesperson said.

“That although their historic undervaluation has now been formally recognised, they are still expected to take on more work for minimum rates of pay.”

Dorevitch is the Victorian branch of the national Healius brand, which recently reported a 3.8 per cent increase in group revenue to $688.1 million, with pathology revenue growing 3.5 per cent.

Staff say these financial results make the company's position even harder to defend.

“It’s been about 10 months of us going through the Fair Work Commission,” Ms Crowther said.

“Our bargaining reps, from the Phlebotomy Council of Australia, have been working hard for us.

“In that 10 months, we’ve had the three different ballot votes. We have voted no three times.

“It keeps going back to the drawing board, so now it’s time to make some noise.”

And judging by the large numbers of community members approaching them at 9am on a Thursday, that noise is being heard.

“We've got a lot of support from a lot of community members and also patients,” Ms Crowther said.

“Also the (Church St) medical centre, they’re right behind us as well.”

Ms Crowther said Dorevitch was an extremely important service in towns such as Benalla, and staff wanted to be valued.

“We're the frontline staff. We care about our patients, we care about our community,” she said.

“So we want them to care about us. We should be on a minimum of $35 per hour. We don’t just sit on our butts. We work hard all day.”

Ms Crowther said this three-hour walk-off was the second stage in their action, following the bans limiting the amount of processing.

“If this isn’t successful, the next step will be a six-hour strike,” she said.

“Hopefully, it doesn’t get to a 24-hour strike.”