Hospital ancillary staff in Queensland’s public hospitals are expected to ramp up industrial action in their fight for a better pay deal. New bans on a range of patient services will be imposed from Friday that will see workers refusing to transport people to and from theatres, bans on emptying clinical waste bins and cleaning the morgue.

These are miserable jobs, often attracting little more than the minimum wage, but are nonetheless essential. As dissatisfaction with static salaries and falling pension rights, coupled with escalating inflation rates, causes increasing disquiet it is not unexpected that another winter of discontent is ahead of us.

If this does happen and ancillary services are affected, involving directly employed staff of contractors, disruption to clinical waste removal will create an additional job for managers and others who must step in at short notice. That requires appropriate workwear and PPE items, and training in hygiene, PPE use, biological ad more general safety training, and management of spills etc. Will it happen? Or will the men in suits miss out on that essential training and muddle along regardless? Even worse, will additional temporary staff be shipped in to manage without training, or just a nod to training as is often the case for temporary and agency staff?

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/hospital-staff-ramp-up-industrial-action-20111019-1m6t1.html#ixzz1bEtj5F3o