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Skodel Newsletter · September 2026
Victorian Doctors Are Striking Over Pay. The Fatigue Risk Hiding Underneath
In this newsletter
| 1 | A Common Question |
| 2 | Skodel Case Analysis, Victorian Doctors' Strike |
| 3 | Other Common Trigger Events |
| 4 | Hazards At Play |
| 5 | How To Use This In Your Workplace |
| 6 | Example Controls |
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Key Figures
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20-hr shifts
Doctors have reported regional rotations involving shifts of up to 20 hours.
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9,000
Around 9,000 Victorian public hospital doctors are covered by the stalled EBA dispute behind the strikes.
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1 · A Common Question
"Isn't this just a pay dispute, nothing to do with psychosocial risk?"
It reads that way in most coverage, because the headline number is a 30% pay claim. But the working conditions driving it, shifts reported as long as 20 hours, minimal say over rostering, long shifts, missed breaks and inadequate recovery associated with demanding rosters, are a textbook description of recognised psychosocial hazards. In Victoria, employers have had a specific legal duty to identify and manage exactly this kind of rostering risk since 1 December 2025, regardless of how the pay negotiation resolves.
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| 2 · Skodel Case Analysis |
Victorian Doctors' Strike, 2026 |
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On 3 September 2026, around 100 doctors at Ballarat Base Hospital (Grampians Health) walked out for four hours, part of the first industrial action by Victorian doctors in around 20 years. It followed similar stopworks at Royal Melbourne, The Alfred, Monash Health, Bendigo Health and others through August, and precedes a statewide 24-hour stopwork on 15 September covering around 9,000 Victorian public hospital doctors. The dispute centres on a stalled enterprise agreement, with ASMOF Victoria seeking a 30% pay rise over four years against a reported 3% government offer.
Fatigue
| • | Doctors describe rotations from 7am past 9pm with no guaranteed break, with some rosters reported at up to 20 hours. |
| • | One Ballarat doctor put it plainly: "It's not safe for us and not safe for patients." Dr Caitlyn Conway, also in Ballarat: "For me the biggest thing is the exhaustion." |
| • | Dr Rob Roscioli: "If you have unhealthy doctors you have unhealthy patients." |
Job demands
| • | The union's claim seeks a 12.5-hour shift cap and two consecutive rostered days off per fortnight, after a year of bargaining across three health ministers. |
| • | AMA Victoria president Dr Simon Judkins has cited surveys showing up to 50% of doctors in training report incredibly high levels of fatigue and stress. |
The angle most coverage misses: this isn't only an industrial dispute to be settled at the bargaining table. Under Victoria's Occupational Health and Safety (Psychological Health) Regulations 2025, working arrangements of this kind may give rise to recognised psychosocial hazards including high job demands and low job control, meaning the employer's duty to identify and control that risk exists independently of how the EBA negotiation ends.
Let's look at some potential controls for a hazard like this
Fatigue
Cap shift length and mandate minimum recovery time between rotations, with a fatigue risk assessment for any roster that departs from that standard.
Job demands
Monitor overtime and workload trends against staffing levels, and resource ahead of sustained peaks rather than absorbing them into existing rosters indefinitely.
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3 · Other Common Trigger Events
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You don't need a 20-hour shift to be looking at the same hazard profile. These everyday situations carry the same underlying risk:
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Fatigue
A retail team runs skeleton rosters through the holiday peak, with back-to-back closing and opening shifts.
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Poor organisational change management
New scheduling software is rolled out overnight with no staff consultation or transition period.
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Poor support
A single remote-site employee provides after-hours on-call cover with no backup available.
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Poor organisational justice
A pay or conditions negotiation stalls for over a year with no update given to affected staff.
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Job demands
A high-performing team quietly absorbs a departed colleague's workload for months without extra resourcing.
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4 · Hazards At Play
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Illustrative risk indication based on publicly reported information, not a formal risk assessment.
Fatigue Doctors reporting shifts of up to 20 hours, missed breaks, and inadequate recovery associated with demanding rosters. |
High |
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Job demands Sustained high workload from understaffing, carried across a year of stalled bargaining with no interim relief. |
High |
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Low job control Rosters set centrally with little doctor input into shift length, break timing or rest periods. |
Mod-High |
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5 · How To Use This In Your Workplace
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| • | Audit rosters for genuine recovery time between shifts, not just whether coverage is met, but whether the gaps between shifts are actually adequate. |
| • | Create a real channel for staff to flag rostering and workload problems, and make sure flagged issues visibly get followed up, not just logged. |
| • | Track overtime and workload trends over time, so a slow drift toward unsustainable hours is caught early, not after it turns into a dispute. |
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6 · Example Controls
Starting points, not a checklist. Every workplace's controls should be shaped by what your own people are telling you.
Fatigue
| • | Design rosters with adequate breaks during and between shifts, and set a maximum shift length before a fatigue risk assessment is triggered. |
| • | Avoid scheduling safety-critical or high-demand work back-to-back, and monitor overtime hours as an early warning signal. |
All 17 hazard categories, with practical controls for each.
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Webinar · 18 September 2026
Psychosocial Hazards in the Workplace: From Compliance Obligation to Practical Action
With Sam McKenzie, Ian Fagan and Ben Chinwah, in partnership with Benchmark OHS
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Skodel · Psychosocial risk assessment for Australian workplaces · skodel.com
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