Salaried doctors' pay deal

The AMA (WA) has been working hard to finalize details of the Industrial Agreement, which was formally accepted by salaried medical practitioners at last month's General Meeting.

The association is also seeking to complete related agreements covering Country Health Services, Clinical Academics, Alcohol and Drug Authority and Health Department, so they can be registered at the same time.

Attempts to fully engage the Government on these have been variable.
The MHS agreement has been largely completed but it has taken a considerable amount of work due to the scope of the changes and technical issues associated with a lengthy and complicated agreement, which covers numerous doctors on numerous levels with a variety of conditions.

Difficulties have and indeed are still being experienced on several remaining issues as a consequence of the Health Department seeking additional substantive changes to those which were explicitly discussed. These are the subject of vigorous discussion.

In addition, attempts to engage them over the other agreements have been extremely limited due to their lack of availability, allegedly due to other negotiations.

However, several meetings have been held in relation to WA Country Health Services, for which they have not been available until recently, despite representations by the AMA since July last year to run negotiations in parallel.

Furthermore, the Department's position has changed in recent weeks. The Department is seeking to introduce a number of negative proposals for salaried doctors in the North West, which are being heavily resisted. A teleconference with North West Representatives has canvassed these issues and further informed the AMA's arguments on their behalf.

It is hoped in the very near future to try and resolve these issues, with a view to finalise the agreements to enable them to be submitted to the WA Industrial Relations Commissions and a hearing sought to consider their registration. It is only once an agreement is registered by the Industrial Relations Commission that it becomes binding.

In the meantime, the association is finalising summaries of the changes and other advice to further inform doctors of the full detail of all the changes. These will be included on the AMA's website and circulated once the legal issues are finalised.