Aged care workers at a Bupa nursing home in Melbourne have walked off the job in a bid to improve staffing levels, wages and conditions.
With snags on the barbecue and Donna Summer's anthem She Works Hard For The Money blaring from a speaker, nurses and carers wearing red T-shirts waved placards during Monday's two-hour stop-work meeting.
The action took place on a nature strip outside the Clayton nursing home following 14 months of pay negotiations.
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation says a nurse or carer employed at Bupa earns 10 per cent less than their peers at other facilities.
"For the first time private aged care nurses and carers are taking industrial action in Victoria, so it's a very big step," Pip Carew, assistant secretary of ANMF Victoria told AAP on Monday.
"The response from the company currently has been to make nurses redundant in their facilities across the state. Negotiations have been really difficult."
Ms Carew says the improper staffing levels cause patients to be sent into the public system for treatment, the "public purse picking up the cost of care".
At one Victorian Bupa nursing home, two nurses and four carers are responsible for 144 residents overnight, the union said.
There is no mandatory minimum staff-to-patient ratio.
Federal legislation only states that aged care facilities must have an "appropriate level" of staff and care.
The industrial action follows a week of campaigning by more than 1000 Bupa aged care workers. Nurses and carers want a rise of around 10 per cent over four years, on top of "catch up rates" to meet industry standards.
The union says a registered nurse employed at Bupa earns $4732 less per year than counterparts in the industry.
The current pay offer from Bupa is an 11.25 per cent wage increase over three years and the company says it will "continue to negotiate in good faith with the unions".
It is also looking at changing its clinical management structure by consolidating two existing roles, but says the move has nothing to do with ongoing wage negotiations
Bupa said it is a necessary change due to the "tightening" of government funding for residents living in residential aged care.
The union will be back in the Federal Court on Wednesday while stop-work action will be held at seven other homes across Victoria in coming days.
