The AMA WA wants members who have worked a short shift on a public holiday in the last six years to check they have not been short-changed.
This follows a doctor being back paid $255, after they were incorrectly paid for a public holiday shift.
The AMA successfully argued that the doctor in training should be paid for their observed public holiday hours despite working a shorter shift that day.
They would ordinarily have been rostered to work nine hours at the hospital where they were employed, however on one public holiday in 2023 they were rostered to work a short shift and were only paid for 4.5 hours at public holiday rates.
Advice from HSS insisted only worked hours are paid at penalty rates and no observed hours were required to be paid for the remainder of the day.
But the AMA successfully disputed this position, arguing it goes against the WA Health Industrial Agreement.
As a result, the doctor was paid the remaining 4.5 hours they were owed, including adjustments to overtime periods for that pay period.
The AMA said the win was a timely reminder to members that if they are rostered on a short shift on a public holiday, they are still entitled to be paid the remaining ordinary hours they would have worked at base rates, including a correction to overtime payments if they are a doctor in training.
The Agreement states that all medical practitioners rostered off duty on a public holiday are entitled to be paid as if the day was an ordinary working day.
The public holiday can also be taken in lieu on another working day instead of being paid as an ordinary working day, if agreed with the employer beforehand.
“When a public holiday falls on a day when a practitioner is rostered off duty and the practitioner has not been required to work on that day the practitioner will be paid as if the day was an ordinary working day or if the Employer agrees be allowed to take a day’s holiday in lieu of the holiday at a time mutually acceptable to the Employer and the practitioner,” the agreement states.
AMA WA is calling on members who have worked a short shift on any public holidays in the last six years and have not been paid the remaining hours they would have worked had it not been a public holiday to get in touch with their industrial relations team.