Junior Doctors' Fight for Overtime Pay
NSW, Victoria, and ACT junior doctors fight in class actions against their employers to be paid for their overtime.
Junior doctors employed by NSW Health between December 2014 and March 2024 may be entitled to compensation after a landmark class action ruling.
The expectation to work additional hours and discouraging tactics used to prevent claiming overtime has been the proverbial thorn in the side. Fear of being penalised for claiming overtime is drowned out by the long hours, high workloads, study, stress, and changing rotations or locations in the near term.
Victorian and Canberra junior doctors launched their own class actions in recent years to address the same issues their employers have imposed upon them regarding unpaid overtime.
Registering for class actions can be found:
Momentum in Victoria
Fast forward to 2023, one junior doctor won over $8,000 for unpaid overtime while working at a Victorian hospital in 2019 and 2020 as part of a class action lawsuit brought by 1,500 doctors in Victoria. In their report to the media the junior doctor report the reason for not claiming overtime because the nature of the tasks as a junior doctor - preparing for rounding and completing records after her shift had finished.
"You would be questioned as to why you needed the overtime, why these tasks were necessary, why couldn't they be handed over, why couldn't they be done in your rostered hours, and why couldn't you just wait to do it the next day," - Historic win for junior doctors in wage theft case for unpaid overtime
The lawsuit was filed in 2021.
A recent survey by the Victorian branch of Australian Salaried Medical Officers’ Federation (ASMOF) found that 87% of junior doctors have worked unpaid overtime in the last 12 months. And 94% fear making a clinical error because of the burnout and fatigue.
Commonly reported reasons junior doctors were not able to claim payment for their overtime hours were a ‘highly obstructive or difficult claiming process’, ‘workplace cultural expectations’, being ‘advised not to claim’ those hours by superiors, peers, or hospital administration.
Victorian junior doctors have broaden their horizon because the ASMOF class action settlement was only with one health service. Doctors in Victoria are employed by individual health services rather than the state government. Class actions are therefore being taken out against each respective health service. Junior doctors in Victoria can register, Doctorovertime.com.au, for the campaign.
NSW Settlement
20,000 NSW junior doctors across may have won the largest underpayment class action in Australian history with an agreed settlment of nearly $230 million.
In a recent filing by the NSW Supreme Court on 15th May 2024 layout the instructions for how to communicate with the group members in the class action. Some details from the filing are:
By 24 May 2024, the First Defendant or her delegate is to send the following email to all Group Members using the email address(es) in the Group Member Information
Display the Settlement Notice, the New Group Member Notice, and the Opted-Out Group Member Notice (together, the Notices) on the website, www.mauriceblackburn.com.au, from the day after these Orders are made until 12 July 2024
If you haven't received a notice and were a NSW junior doctor in the relevant period then you can register as a new group member.
Canberra doctors continue
Doctors in Canberra have launched their own class action seeking compensation for unpaid overtime dating back to 2016.
One of the defendants in the class action has counter-sued one junior doctor for not keeping accurate recordings of unrostered overtime.
If the outcomes in Victoria and New South Wales are indicative of how the case in Canberra may play out then their maybe a shift perception of unpaid overtime for doctors in training.