1986 Strike
The Beginning of the Strike
Following the breakdown of negotiations between the parties regarding amendments to the career structure in the June award, on 30 October 1986, nurses voted overwhelmingly to strike. Elective surgery admissions were ceased and skeleton staff was maintained in wards requiring intensive nursing. The RANF lodged a log of claims featuring 20 grievances with the June award that required rectification, including wage increases, particularly for Grade 1 and student nurses, reinstatement of qualification allowances, reclassification of nursing grades and withdrawal of demotions. After the Registered Nurses Conciliation and Arbitration Board failed to resolve the dispute, on 4 November, nurses at the Western General Hospital voted to become the first nurses to walk out entirely, leaving no skeleton staff except for critical care nurses. Over the next six days, a further 18 hospitals voted for total walkouts. The RANF refused to allow nurses at the Peter MacCullum Cancer Institute, Fairfield Hospital or Royal Children’s Hospital to walk out.
As the strike progressed, nurses faced increasingly hostility from the Government, health associations and the media. On 3 November, Premier John Cain threatened to invoke the Essential Services Act 1958, providing police with the power to break picket lines, force nurses back to work, and arrest those nurses who refused. Cain warned that any nurses that continued to strike faced stand downs, sackings, or action “far more serious than sacking”. On November 6, Cain gave a two-minute television address, describing the RANF leaders as “dogmatic and uncompromising”:
“I’m now appealing to nurses to think again about their action. I urge nurses to meet their obligations and put patients first. Stay at work and have the disputed claims sorted out through arbitration – that is the proper and long-accepted process for resolving industrial disputes. Now it is time for nurses to give a little.” (Bowen and Everill)
The media was equally critical of what was perceived to be an obstreperous and shameless cash-grab by the RANF. An editorial in The Ageon 5 November stated that:
“The Government from the start of this dispute has demonstrated considerable goodwill towards the nurses, while the nurses have shown an increasing willingness to trade on the public credibility. That credibility will be badly tarnished if they maintain this foolish strike, which is putting the health and safety of sick people at risk.”
Another editorial in The Age entitled “Nurses must not win” on November 12 stated:
“The nurses are the ones who must give ground. When they do end their dispute without having extracted everything they want, it will be tempting for them to blame the Government, the Commission, the Trades Hall Council, the Health Department and the media. But they should not. They should direct their anger at their union for not telling them what happens if you go on strike over multi- million dollar pay claims outside the wage-fixing guidelines when the economy is in recession. You lose.”
On 6 November, the State Industrial Relations Commission handed down a return-to-work order. The IRC stated that it would hear the RANF’s list of 20 grievances and arbitrate the dispute, provided the nurses returned to work. Bolger remained steadfast, and the members voted not to return to work:
“We can only go back [to work] on the basis of agreements and resolution of the problems. It’s up to the nurses to make up their minds. They will be told that the commission has ordered them back to work. But as I walk around the picket lines the nurses are saying they won’t go back.” (Davis and Menagh)
The University of Melbourne
Published Sources
Newspaper Articles
- Editorial, 'Nurses running out of credit', The Age, 5 November 1986: 13
- Editorial, 'Nurses must not win', The Age, 12 November 1986: 13
- Davis, Mark and Menagh, Catherine, 'Nurses to decide today on strike', The Age, 8 November 1986: 1
Videorecording
- Brown, Chris and Everill, Christina, Running out of patience: The 1986 nurses' strike