'Play by the rules': union lashed for doctors strike

A health union criticised for defying court orders with a rare doctors strike has been urged by a state government to halt the protest and restart wage negotiations before patients are put at risk. or signup to continue reading The NSW doctors union on Wednesday boldly announced it would continue with three days of industrial action, starting next Tuesday. That is despite the state's Industrial Relations Commission ruling this week it must be scrapped.

The state's first strike by doctors since 1998 was expected to cause widespread delays and force thousands of planned surgeries to be cancelled. It follows the union's landmark arbitration in the same court to force a major pay rise for overworked public psychiatrists. The industrial court hit back on Thursday, criticising the union for trying to "take matters into its own hands".



"The difficulty is that ASMOF (the union) seeks the commission's assistance while defying its orders," it said. "The commission does not propose to continue with the balance of the psychiatry staff arbitration proceedings while ASMOF maintains this position." The union's council has until Friday morning to scrap the strike or see two further days of the ongoing psychiatry wage vacated.

"Industrial parties cannot expect to enjoy access to 'an impartial and adequately endowed arbitration system' while concurrently exercising their industrial strength by way of direct action to the detriment of the public interest," the commission said. The union's council was considering its position, manager for industrial services Ian Lisser told AAP. "Until there's a decree by the council one way or the other .

.. the industrial action plans will continue," he said.

He criticised an email sent by NSW Health to doctors claiming they had no right to participate in the industrial action. It also claimed striking doctors could be reported to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency or Health Care Complaints Commission. The email was overreach, misinformation and scare tactics, Mr Lisser said.

A union text message sent to members after the commission's lashing said the strike would go ahead and would only be cancelled if the state Labor government offered a "fair deal" for doctors. NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said it was not too late for the union to return to arbitration. "The independent umpire as a mechanism for resolving these disputes only works if we all play by the rules," he told AAP.

He said the commission should be allowed to do its job and set a fair wage without needing to put patients and the community at risk. Hospital doctors have repeatedly rejected a 10.5 per cent increase over three years back-paid to July, instead demanding 30 per cent.

Junior doctors in NSW receive the lowest base salary in the country, starting on $76,000 out of university. On Wednesday, Mr Park said the one-off increase was "simply not achievable" and would cost more than $11 billion over four years. The government has adopted a similar stance in its battle to retain public psychiatrists.

One third of mental health positions were unfilled at the start of the year while 206 of the remaining 292 psychiatrists submitted resignations. Daily Today's top stories curated by our news team. Weekdays Grab a quick bite of today's latest news from around the region and the nation.

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