A SMALL group of Dorevitch Pathology workers walked off the job outside Rosebud Hospital on Thursday, 30 April, joining colleagues at sites across Victoria in protected industrial action over a long-running pay dispute.
Known as phlebotomists, they are the healthcare workers trained to draw blood from patients for pathology testing – the samples GPs, hospitals, oncology units and specialists rely on for diagnosis and treatment.
Capel Sound phlebotomist Antoinette Anderson said the three-hour stoppage from 9am to 12pm drew supportive honks from passing motorists, with doctors, nurses, ambulance officers and police all acknowledging the workers as they passed. Some doctors stopped to take pamphlets.
“We were small in number, but I think we had a little bit of an impact,” Anderson said.
Anderson, who has worked as a phlebotomist on the peninsula since 2022 after a career in nursing, was joined outside the hospital by Rosebud collection centre colleague Kay Newman, retired former staff and a number of patients – many of them elderly – who came down to stand with the workers.
Anderson said Dorevitch employed roughly 40 to 60 phlebotomists, lab staff and couriers across the Mornington Peninsula. Rosebud Hospital was chosen as the local action site because it was central for staff further down the peninsula and covered both collection centre and hospital workers.
The phlebotomists are part of national protected industrial action coordinated by the Phlebotomists Council of Australia, which has been negotiating a new enterprise agreement with Dorevitch for more than 12 months. Workers have rejected three proposed agreements, including one that offered lower-paid staff a sign-on bonus.
“Our employer has not given us a pay raise in seven years, yet during that time, they made millions in profits,” Anderson said.
“We are asking for a reasonable wage increase to keep up with inflation.”
Pathology collectors were recently recognised by the Fair Work Commission as historically undervalued in its Gender Undervaluation Review of the federal award, leading to a reclassification and an increase to the base award wage. Anderson said Dorevitch was now using that increase to offset enterprise agreement conditions previously negotiated with staff, rather than offering a wage rise on top.
She said a return to minimum award wages would amount to a pay cut.
“For such a specialised role, the choice to care for others should not come at financial disadvantage,” she said.
Dorevitch’s parent company Healius reported group revenue of $688.1m for the half year to December 2025, up 3.8 per cent, with pathology revenue up 3.5 per cent to $666.3m.
Throughout the past month of industrial action – which has included bans limiting collection to one patient per hour – Anderson said urgent patients had continued to be seen. The Capel Sound centre operates directly behind the chemotherapy unit at Rosebud Hospital, where staff know many regular patients personally.
“Patient welfare is absolutely essential to us as well,” she said.
“We make sure all of our urgent patients are taken care of.”
Patients requiring non-urgent blood tests on action days have been directed to nearby facilities or asked to return when staff are not participating in bans.
The next Fair Work Commission date listed in the dispute is in June. Anderson said workers planned to escalate the action in the meantime, with longer stoppages of six hours or more possible.
“We don’t like it but we have been forced into a corner,” she said.
First published in the Mornington News – 5 May 2026
