Dispute Resolution - Case Study Example

Dispute Resolution Name Instructor Course Dispute Resolution Executive Summary The Australia experienced one of the largest, longest, and the most significant strikes of that period when the nurses underwent a 50-day strike following some specific demands that they needed to be addressed. The nurses, with the help of their union, RANF had put forward some claims that needed to be addressed. The report has discussed the causes of this strike which were the claims that the nurses and the union which needed to be addressed. According to the report, they were demanding for a 4.6% pay rise per year from the government, and some issues relating to the registered nurses, as well as the nurse-patient ratios. The report has also analyzed the perspectives of the various stakeholders including the government, the nurses, and RANF. After a long strike, according to the report findings, the dispute resolution was not effective, and it had impacts on the employment relations in Australia. Table of Contents Table of Contents 3 Introduction 4 Summary of the Dispute 4 Stakeholder Analysis of the Dispute 6 Nurses 6 Royal Australian Nurses Federation (RANF) 7 Government 7 Resolution of the Conflict 8 Effectiveness of the Resolution 9 Conclusion 10 References 11 Introduction Typically, nurses are usually perceived as being the men’s archetypal ‘hand-maidens.’ However, the Victorian strike of the nurses which occurred in the year 1986 seemed to change this perception entirely (Brown et al., 2006). The dispute that the nurses brought forward was not only important for the nurses only, but it also served as a rather valuable lesson for the other women workers who learned that women also have the right to he heard as well and have the power in their hands to make sure their disputes are resolved (Briskin, 2012). The Victorian Strike was primarily an unresolved dispute between the Australian government, the nurses, and the unions each with different perspectives of the issue and the ways in which the issue could be resolved (Stanton, Bartram and Harbridge, 2004). The paper will, therefore, seek to evaluate the Victorian strike of the nurses which occurred in 1986, undertake a stakeholder analysis of the dispute, and discuss the ways in which the dispute was resolved. Summary of the Dispute In the year 1986, the Victorian nurses decided to go on strike for approximately 50 days. This was the second time that the nurses were going on strike because of unresolved disputes with the first time being in the year 1985 which went on just for five days (Briskin, 2011). These strikes were a part of a given campaign to protect the women and more specifically the nurses who had for some time being taken for granted more so by the men. Various factors had been brought up to be the reasons for the strike (Briskin, 2011). The first and the most important being the decision of the nurses’ union, Royal Australian Nursing Federation (RANF) decided to vote to support the decision to do away with the ‘no-strike’ clause from the nursing rules in the year 1984 (Cregan, Bartram, and Stanton, 2009). During the very same year, the government of Victoria also decided to cut the health budget which made matters even worse, and it was probably the last straw for the nurses. In that particular dispute, there were three critical issues which were at the core of the Australian Nursing Federation. Some of these issues were that they claimed for a pay rise of approximately 4.6% per annum, the role of the registered nurses in performing duties needed to be retained, and they wanted the preservation of the nurse-patient ratios (Baker, 2001). On the part of the Victorian Government, instead of offering a 4.6% pay rise per year, the government was ready to give a 2.5% pay rise per year (Buchanan and Briggs, 2005). The government declared that it would only offer the 4.6% pay rise only if the productivity offsets could be realized. Regarding the ratios, the Victorian government decided to provide some flexibility to the ratios application and in the same light decided to replace the registered nurses with the nurse assistants and enrolled nurses (Buchanan and Briggs, 2005). These disagreements resulted in a blue sky being created between the two parties which were where the dispute started growing large. This dispute highlighted the complex and problematic nature when it comes to bargaining in the public sector. According to the nurses, there was already a tendency for raising the wages of workers until it had reached a point where it exceeded the affordability of the taxpayers from their perspective (Brigden and Milner, 2013). The other complex factor of the dispute was that the public sector bargaining power was not the same within the various groups of workers in the public sector. For example, the Victorian Police could cut a substantial amount of pay, which was more than the 2.5% which the nurses were being offered per year (Brigden and Milner, 2013). This made the nurses felt like they were not perceived as important as they were. Even after raising these concerns to the government, there were only a few arbitrations processes which were not successful. Stakeholder Analysis of the Dispute Nurses The Victorian nurses wanted their issues to be addressed regarding the nurse-patient ratios, the issue with the registered nurses, as well as the pay rise per annum (Hunter, 2005). They had rested their hopes upon the Victorian State Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) who held various hearings regarding their career structures and wages which had already, by then, resulted from the industrial action which occurred in the year 1985 October (Hunter, 2005). In the following year, 1986, June, they were given what they needed which was the increase in their wages through altering their nursing career structure. However, even after this increase, two immediate challenges emerged (Hunter, 2005). One, the nurses felt like the bulk of the first-year graduate nurses, trainee nurses, as well as the overall nurses would not receive anything as far as these pay rises are concerned. The second problem that the nurses needed to be addressed was the fact that there were no clear guidance or strategies which would be put in place regarding backdating their salaries (Hunter, 2005). The nurses needed their salary increase to be backdated so that they could be paid even for the previous years that they already worked (Whyte, 2000). However, the IRC together with the government felt that the RANF would still be obliged to take the generous decision of increasing their pay even if the junior nurses would not get anything from it (Whyte, 2000). However, the nurses had a different perspective on the issue. Their goal of this dispute was to ensure that their age rise is backdated, and to ensure that even the junior nurses received these pay rise that was given by the Victorian government. Since this was not going to be the case, the nurses resolved to go on strike again to strive in forwarding their claim to the government (Bartram, Stanton, and Harbridge, 2004). Royal Australian Nurses Federation (RANF) In the start of the year, 1986 things were generally on the low regarding strikes and the union. However, in February of the same year, some nurses of the Traralgon Hospitals decided to go on strike because of the nurse shortages that they were experiencing, but the combination of the Victorian Trades Hall Council and the RANF leadership sold these nurses out (Koon et al., 2017). After this was known, the government then decided to hire Irish and British nurses at a $6 million cost (Koon et al., 2017). Following this action by the government, RANF started to have fears that probably the government would not address the issues like security, car parking, childcare as well as pay issues. When the government delayed in handling these issues, RANF decided to forward their claim and fears to the government through taking action to dispute this overseas nurses’ recruitment (Tierney and Cregan, 2013). They put up bans on hiring nurses from Irish and England, and they also decided to present their government with a given demands’ list regarding the employment of nurses in their government (Tierney and Cregan, 2013). Government The government felt like it was being bombarded with many issues regarding the nurses which they were feeling incapacitated to address them all at a given time that the nurses and their union expected them to (Strauss, 2013). One of the demands that were from the RANF was that the government need not cut their qualification allowance which are the additional payments which are made to the nurses for the skills which they obtained during their special training. According to the government’s perspective, they ensured that every Australian staff received these payments regardless of the sector that they were in (Strauss, 2013). Following this, the government’s goal was just to reduce the amount these payments so that every worker in every sector could benefit from it without jeopardizing the economic stability of the country . (Strauss, 2013) However, clearly, RANF and the nurses that they represented could not buy any of this. When the government failed to address these problems that were being brought forward by the nurses and the union, a significant number of nurses began resigning, and they lost a whole lot of them (Strauss, 2013). This started to be strenuous on its healthcare system led to the government having pressure to resolve their issues failure to which their healthcare system will be bruised significantly. Therefore, the government decided to take initiatives like the arbitrations so that all the parties could understand the various perspectives of the problem and try to come up with a sustainable solution (Strauss, 2013). Resolution of the Conflict It is the role of the government to protect the safety and health of the public. The nurses and their unions, in this case, RANF, is usually responsible for making arrangements for availing emergency services to their patients (Seggie, 2011). Disrupting these services would mean that the public is being subjected to very high safety and health risks. It is also the role of the government to maintain a stable health system which aims at preserving the collecting bargaining while at the same time ensuring an impartial and fair result for all the relevant stakeholders (Seggie, 2011). Taking this into consideration, the government together will the affected parties in the strike resolved to develop a dispute resolution strategy which would strive to balance and address the needs of all the parties and stakeholders in the crisis (Seggie, 2011). After the long nurses’ strike, the militant tactics was the one which more or less led to the end of the strike. In the same year, 1986, on the 8th of December, RANF union decided to escalate its various actions regarding the issue and the nurses also started walking away from providing health care in the critical wards more (Whyte, 2000). Three days after this happened, which was on 12th of December, the government decided to make an announcement which instructed the State Enrolled Nurses (SEN) to undertake the work that the other nurses that were on strike were doing (Whyte, 2000). Following this, the nurses gained a significant amount of public support which resulted in propelling one of the longest Nurses strikes in the Australian history. In the end, the nurses got their needs addressed where their pay was increased as they wanted and their working conditions were improved as well. This led to the transitioning of the unions to turn out and become involved in the neoliberal affairs (Whyte, 2000). The membership in the unions tumbles, the manufacturing went offshore, and the industrial towns ended up closing down. Additionally, the distinctions on gender and class became rather sharpened as well. Effectiveness of the Resolution The dispute was not resolved effectively because it did not involve a sit down which would consider all the perspectives of all the stakeholders and develop a decision that everyone’s needs were addressed (Goldberg, 2003). It took the nurses to go on strike and an industrial action to more or less force the government to heed to their demands. Coercion is not an effective means of resolving disputes (Goldberg, 2003). It is the responsibility of the government to bring all the stakeholders together to discuss the issue and develop practical and effective means of addressing the problem. Following the dispute, the employment relations in Australia became delicate and competitive (Astor and Chinkin, 2002). This is because every sector wanted to receive special recognition like the nurses did. This made them very competitive whereby they compared what the employees of one sector got and compared it with what those of another sector got and used that as the basis of making their demands (Astor and Chinkin, 2002). Conclusion One of the most relevant disputes that took place in Australia was the Nurses’ strike which occurred in the year 1989. This strike occurred for various reasons some of which included the need for a 4.6% pay rise per year, and issues to do with the nurse-patient ratios in the hospitals as well as the work structure of the registered nurses. Some of the stakeholders that were included in the disputes were the nurses, their union, RANF, and the government with each of them having different perspectives of the dispute and hoping to achieve different goals. The dispute was not resolved effectively because it took industrial action to coerce the government to heed to their claims and needs instead of having rational dispute resolution mechanisms to sort the dispute out. Following the dispute, the employment relations were affected in that the employment sector became highly competitive and delicate. References Astor, H and Chinkin, C 2002, Dispute resolution in Australia. LexisNexis Butterworths. Baker, D 2001, Barricades and batons: A historical perspective of the policing of major industrial disorder in Australia. Policing the lucky country, pp.199-222. Bartram, T., Stanton, P. and Harbridge, R 2004, Changing employment relations in the health sector: evidence from Victoria, Australia.  Korean Journal of Industrial Relations, 14(1), pp.63-86. Brigden, C and Milner, L 2013, Roll out the red carpet: Australian nurses on screen. WorkingUSA, 16(4), pp.505-523. Briskin, L 2011, The militancy of nurses and union renewal. 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