With Grant Forsyth
Enterprise bargaining for AMA Victoria members is led by both AMA and the doctors’ union, ASMOF Victoria. We negotiate enterprise agreements for public hospital doctors, including specialists and doctors in training. Here’s what you need to know.
What is enterprise bargaining?
Enterprise bargaining is where employers and employees negotiate pay and working conditions for a specific group of employees in a workplace or business. Employees often negotiate with their employer through a union or representatives. Enterprise agreements (EAs) are made at the enterprise level (i.e. with a single employer or a group of employers), not across an entire industry. The result is an EA that sets wages, hours, leave and other conditions. In Australia, enterprise bargaining is part of the Fair Work system – Australia's national workplace relations framework. Any agreement must meet the Better Off Overall Test (BOOT). This means that with enterprise bargaining, you can be certain you’re better off.
Why is enterprise bargaining especially relevant in Victoria?
In Victoria we have 76 public health services, often with differing policies and their own way of doing things. This is in stark contrast to other states like New South Wales, where there’s just one employer, with one set of terms and conditions and HR policies.
How do AMA Victoria and ASMOF Victoria approach enterprise bargaining?
Our approach is based on member-driven consultation, collective negotiation and advocacy for improved pay and working conditions for doctors working in public hospitals. AMA and ASMOF Victoria have developed two strong EAs: the Doctors in Training EA and the Specialists EA. The agreements cover the health services in Victoria that employ their doctors directly and have created a foundation for class actions against health services who are in breach of the Doctors in Training EA.
From March 2021, we commenced a number of class actions against health services for non-payment of overtime worked by junior doctors. In 2023 we won the first of these class actions and are now in the process of settling the class action with the State Government and at the direction of the Federal Court, for all junior doctors in all health services who were not paid overtime.
How does enterprise bargaining protect doctors in training?
Doctors in training in the public system are on short, fixed term contracts, which means they must reapply for their jobs multiple times before they finish their training and become specialists. It’s very destabilising, with doctors often afraid to raise issues or rock the boat lest they’re not given a good reference or get onto a training program. Through enterprise bargaining, we've been able to remove maximum term contract restrictions for specialists. We continue to advocate by bargaining for longer term or ongoing contracts for doctors in training to provide stability for and remove the stress of having to apply for jobs each year.
What will happen in this space in 2026?
Enterprise bargaining for public sector doctors will continue and will shape many of the conditions under which doctors work. In August 2025, ASMOF Victoria and AMA Victoria commenced meetings with health service representatives and the Victorian Department of Health to negotiate the terms and conditions of employment for the next public hospital doctors enterprise agreements. Since October 2024, we have run over 30 consultations and endorsement meetings, received hundreds of emails and had thousands of individual conversations to better understand how we can shape the workplace doctors deserve. We anticipate the new EAs will be agreed on in the second part of 2026.
Member engagement strengthens bargaining outcomes, so encourage your fellow interns to join AMA Victoria! To learn more about your EA, log into your AMA Victoria member portal and access it at News and Resources, then Workplace, then Enterprise Agreements.
Grant Forsyth is Director Workplace Relations at AMA Victoria and CEO at Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation (ASMOF) Victoria.