“Undervalued” Eastern Health workers fight against privatisation push

After 36 years as a Patient Services Assistant at the state government’s Eastern Health (EH), Greg still loves his job, which involves everything from general cleaning duties to transporting clinical specimens.

"We worked through Covid, we've had to deal with a lot of stressful issues during that time and you just feel forgotten,” he said.

However, in the wake of EH’s moves to outsource his role - along with those of 300-400 of his colleagues - he told the Eastern Melburnian he felt “disposable” and “undervalued”.

Greg, who spoke on the condition of only giving his first name, was one of about 50 EH employees who congregated outside of Box Hill Hospital on Tuesday, as part of a Health Workers Union (HWU) action pushing back against the proposed action.

In a statement to the Eastern Melburnian, EH said: “It is anticipated that existing employees will receive an offer of employment with the proposed provider.”

The “provider” is ISS Facility Services Australia, which referred our inquiry back to EH.

ISS has provided non-clinical support services to EH since 1999. As of August 2018, when it last extended its contract with EH, it had 450 contracted workers within EH services.

What jobs could be privatised? Non-clinical jobs within the hospital system - including orderlies, cleaners and food service staff - are the focus of the push for privatisation.

The outsourcing would impact workers at locations including Box Hill, Maroondah and Blackburn.

The HWU said that on August 19, with no prior warning, Eastern Health announced the proposed outsourcing. The union had started negotiations with EH on the next bargaining agreement between the workers and the state, as the previous agreement had lapsed in July.

Moving the goalposts: The HWU claims outsourcing would breach part of the current Enterprise Agreement, which states that “parties are committed to preferencing secure employment and reducing labour hire within the Victorian Public Health Sector”.

HWU lead organiser Jake McGuinness said the privatisation would mean employees couldn’t “take industrial action and … not able to really be a part of the bargaining”.

Straight to the top: Greg called on the Victorian government to step in and stop any attempt at outsourcing.

“They have the power to stop this and there's complete silence from them,” he said. 

“They’re betraying us if they let this go ahead.”

According to an Eastern Health spokesperson, “consultation with staff and industrial partners is underway, and no decisions have been made”.