Members of the Victorian Allied Health Professionals Association (VAHPA) held a mass meeting at Trades Hall on 28 April to discuss enterprise agreement negotiations. The union is bargaining with the Victorian Hospitals Industrial Association and the state government.

Union members voted unanimously to empower the leadership to start the process to authorise industrial action as part of the campaign. The union represents a number of different groups of allied health workers in public and community health, including radiographers, physiotherapists, social workers and occupational therapists. 

VAHPA is the new name adopted by the Health Services Union Branch 3, which became notorious after the corruption of former union leaders including Kathy Jackson was exposed. The old leadership has been cleared out, and the new union is keen to establish itself as a serious union willing to fight for its members. For allied health workers, there’s a lot to fight for.

The previous two agreements negotiated under the former leadership were grubby deals that allowed wages and conditions to fall dramatically behind workers represented by other HSU branches.

This bargaining round, union members are fighting for pay parity with allied health workers in other branches and to scrap some of the worst clauses that crept into previous agreements, including a provision that limits the union’s ability to raise disputes at the Fair Work Commission without the employer’s consent. Also important are clauses relating to workloads. Currently, allied health workers are expected to cope with growing patient numbers without any additional resources.

Part of the task of reclaiming the union for its members involves growing membership numbers and training union activists. To increase the union’s visibility, members are encouraged to wear their union T-shirts to work on T-shirt Tuesday. Already, there are reports that this is creating a sense of unity between union members and proving a useful way to start discussions about the campaign with other workers, patients and the public.

The union’s leadership has also raised the idea of allied health workers campaigning alongside nurses, who are also currently negotiating a new agreement. Any moves in this direction would be an important step forward for VAHPA.