qld labor party - history

A friend and occasional hotcopperite alerted me to this letter in the Courier Mail.

I think I can quote part of her email:

"Anyway, I resigned on Friday, not getting paid properly for extra shifts or penalty rates."


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http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/dear-sir-can-i-get-my-pay-please/story-e6frerhf-1225878580904

Dear Sir, can I get my pay please Madonna King

From: The Courier-Mail June 12, 2010 12:01AM

PLEASE HELP:

To Health Minister Paul Lucas - `you seemed like a decent man when you opened our new wing'. Source: The Courier-Mail


Hon Paul Lucas MP
Member for Lytton
Deputy Premier and Minister for Health
Level 19, State Health Building
147-163 Charlotte St
Brisbane QLD 4001
GPO Box 48, Brisbane QLD 4001

Dear Mr Lucas,

MY NAME is Martha and I'm one of the 27,000 nurses who work for you. Minister, I'm spitting chips. It's been 14 weeks since I've had a correct pay. I'm at the end of my tether.

Can you imagine getting into your big limo each morning, going to Parliament, holding all those strategy meetings, making all those decisions and not being paid?

I don't pretend to be as important as you, but that's what's happening to me except I don't have the limo. I catch the bus, then the train, and then walk the last 800m.

And just as you love the theatre of Parliament, I love the little hospital theatre I'm attached to. I even enjoy holistic care; that means the stuff we do to make people comfortable, and it can really be anything.

Yesterday I held a bottle so Mr Smith could pee into it. I also wiped his bum, which doesn't worry me. It's just part of the job.

You see the appreciation on Mr Smith's face, and you know you've made a difference. It's like you looking into the eyes of a Labor voter who backs privatisation. It's a special moment.

But Mr Lucas, you at least get paid for those special moments. I have three kids and a husband who flew the coop with a younger bird years ago. I went to university. You did law because you wanted to help people. I did nursing for the same reason.

Three years at university weren't easy. But the seven years I've had in this unit have been terrific. I reckon I earn the $79,800 I get each year.

Well, I should get $79,800 a year but who knows what my group certificate will show this year. For the past 14 weeks I don't know what I've earned.

Let me explain. I've had a loan repayment taken out (even though I haven't applied for a loan), missed an automatic salary-sacrificing payment on my car, not been paid for the shifts I worked in weeks three, five, seven and 11, and like the other nurses in my unit, I can't read the pay packet.

Every time we call the pay office, they say it will be fixed. But it isn't. I'm not as educated as you are Sir, and I don't know anything about payroll systems, but I met a patient once who was a bit out of it at the time, but he said you shouldn't have closed down the last system before you activated this one.

I hope you don't mind me saying that; it wasn't meant as a criticism. I just wondered whether you'd considered that. I also met Aaron at a barbecue last week. He knows this bloke, who knows another bloke, who goes out with a girl who works with someone at KPMG and he reckons the new system can't cope with 78,000 employees.

Anyway, I'm sure you're on top of that and I apologise for being so forward. Of course there are so many people worse off than I am, like my patients, and they really are my No.1 priority a bit like the voters being your No.1 priority.

But, Mr Lucas, some of my colleagues are in real strife. Meryl has defaulted on child-support payments. Anne has left to do locum shifts up the road. Alison's super is stuffed up. Michael says he's not going to spend another day off chasing his back pay because he can't prove now what he worked!

My supervisor has spent days checking our shifts and that's starting to hurt patient care, Mr Lucas.

I'm glad you're not in one of the beds.

I also know some casual nurses who are refusing shifts because they say the private sector at least pays them; the same with the doctors. They won't cop this. Some have quit already, and more are planning to.

Mr Lucas, you seemed like a decent man when you opened our new wing. You even came into the cafe and tried the hospital food, which I thought was pretty brave.

So I've decided to plead with you directly. Please pay me. The school fees are due, the car is out of petrol again, and I've banned the kids from turning on the heater because of the electricity prices you promised would be kept under control.

One other thing you might help me with Sir. My eldest child is talking about being a nurse. She's always going on about wanting to care for people.

I feel terribly impolite asking, but perhaps you could talk her into becoming a politician instead.

Then she can talk about caring for people all day and get paid as well.

Kind regards,

Martha

[email protected]

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