Employment – Strike: St John ambulance officers vote for withdrawal of labour

Over 2,500 ambulance officers from FIRST Union and the New Zealand Ambulance Association (a division of the Amalgamated Workers of New Zealand – AWUNZ) have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a national withdrawal of labour, set to take place later this month. The strike vote comes in the absence of any pay rise offer above 0% per hour from Hato Hone St John or confirmation from the Government that funding to the partially charity-funded service will finally be increased after failed coalition promises and a “shameful” silence from Shane Reti, the responsible Minister.

Ambulance officers from FIRST and NZAA have ratified collaborative strike actions involving staggered four-hour withdrawals of labour by union members across all ambulance shifts and regional stations, which are due to take place on the 20th and 24th August, following the required extended strike notification period to the employer for essential health services. The actions were supported by a majority strike ballot of more than 90% of FIRST Union respondents and more than 80% of NZAA members. The unions will now enter negotiations with St John over the signing of a life preserving services agreement, which intends to ensure minimum emergency response coverage is sufficient to meet critical patient needs during strike action.

Faye McCann, FIRST Union national ambulance coordinator, said union members had not initially wanted to withdraw their labour, but following three months of non-disruptive strike actions and attempts to engage with St John, there had been no response from Government to St John’s apparent requests for increased funding and at present, ambulance officers were being presented a pay cut without any prospect for further negotiation.

“Withdrawing their labour is a last resort for many ambulance officers, but they’re stuck between a rock – St John – and a hard place – the Beehive – and time is running out to find a solution,” said Ms McCann.

“Their last agreement expired in December and since then, they’ve been on a journey deep into a rabbit hole of funding agreements, political campaign promises and imaginary negotiations with an employer that says they simply have no money; end of discussion.”

Mark Quin, NZAA Division Chairman, said ambulance officers were frustrated, demoralised and feeling undervalued by Hato Hone St John and sick of the continued standard line of being committed to reaching a settlement through ongoing negotiations, which he says is simply untrue.

“There is no ongoing negotiation as St John states, as they simply have no money and are relying on Health NZ to resolve the pay dispute. How can you negotiate with an organisation that has no money to pay its staff what they are worth and blames Health NZ for not having the funding?” said Mr Quin.

“Equally Health NZ are blaming St John for poor financial management, meanwhile staff are caught in the middle and increasingly seeking employment opportunities outside St John and overseas, where NZ paramedics are highly sought after.”

“Staff are increasingly calling for the resignation of Peter Bradley as CEO and the executive leadership team because of the financial mismanagement of the ambulance service and the broken relationships they have with Health NZ.”

“It’s with reluctance we take this current action but we, the collective unions, have been especially patient over the last 2 years, with continuous promises of resolving funding and seeking additional funding by HHSJ. The last 5 years have been particularly acrimonious because of HHSJ’s belief they could run a national ambulance service on 83% funding and as a charity.”

“This shows St John is an organisation that is out of touch with the realities of running emergency services and has a continued belief in charity, as opposed to Fire and Police who are 100% funded.”

“All political parties that form the coalition Government have indicated increased funding for ambulances services with Winston Peters and New Zealand First making election campaign statements but we have yet to see any sign of this and more so since the announcement of the budget in May with an increase to health and frontline services, which of course is what the ambulance service is.”

Tom Bannan, a St John Emergency Medical Technician and FIRST Union member who has worked for the service for 35 years, said ambulance officers could not accept a pay cut when the service was in the “worst state” he and colleagues had ever seen.

“We’re getting a lot of support from the public, especially with the chalked ambulances. People are tooting in support, younger people are reading the messages when we pull up, and the community is getting involved,” said Mr Bannan.

“People just can’t believe that a modern day ambulance service is in this state. There’s massive support for a fully-funded ambulance sector.”

“A withdrawal of labour is a worst-case scenario for us. We don’t want to let the public down and have been trying not to with our actions.”

“But we now need to send a strong message that the current situation is untenable and unsustainable.”

Ms McCann and Mr Quin said the silence and evasion from Minister Shane Reti over the future of the ambulance service was “shameful”. Neither the Minister nor NZ First representatives have yet publicly explained the failure of the coalition agreement pledge between the parties to increase the proportion of Government funding for St John. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon claimed in May that the service “ actually don’t want to be 100% funded“; a claim that St John representatives have denied to union representatives throughout the bargaining process.

“The consequences of underfunding and austerity are grim for ambulance officers, but they don’t bode well for patients either,” said Ms McCann. “The service is already struggling to meet patient demand.”

“Our ambulance officers are stretched thinner than ever and many are leaving the service for higher-paying jobs in comparable health jobs or to countries like Australia, where wages are higher and the service is overseen by a Fair Work Ombudsman and underwritten by a robust National Award.”

“It’s tragic that in Aotearoa, our politicians seem disinterested at best in the future of our emergency services, and at work, actively negligent.”

• Members will add a photograph of their ambulance or a piece of equipment within their ambulance (that does not contravene the patient’s privacy or confidentiality) to each and every patient report form in ePRF.
• Members in both North and South Communications Centres will not update Fire and Emergency New Zealand locate times in the CAD (ie Comms will continue to mark FENZ as located, but will not correct/update the time).
• Members who are single-crewed Patient Transfer Officers will decline multi-loads (ie more than one patient at a time), regardless whether the patients are on a stretcher, in a wheelchair or ambulatory, excluding Shuttles and EAS double-crewed vehicles. This includes any primary or secondary healthcare facility New Zealand-wide (covers hospitals, residential addresses, residential care facilities, Accident and Medical clinics, GP surgeries and non-urgent flight transfers) – excludes Hospices, urgent transfers and scheduled runs.
• For members vehicles and equipment checks will be completed but not recorded (in either paper or electronic form):
• Members who use the Stryker manual stretcher, will request assistance to load all manual stretchers with a patient if not double-crewed (includes both Emergency Ambulance and Patient Transport Service employees), (excluding urgent or scheduled runs).
• For members that may be required to man an Ambulance Waiting Area (AWA), a total ban on Emergency Ambulance Service staff manning Ambulance Waiting Areas.
• If AWA area is mobilised with NZAA members a multi casualty tent will be erected at that Emergency Dept, anywhere in NZ
• To cease contributing to Remote Tele-triage in any form while on duty and at any St John facility/building including personal residence of any staff member.
• To not agreeing to being rostered as First Response Unit (FRU) or being single-crewed on any transport-capable road ambulance (excluding PTS) regardless of call sign/vehicle with operational capability.
• Ceasing to use personal cellphones for St John business, including authenticator security for St John devices and any electronic work platforms, databases, emails, and applications.
• No Signing into eRoad on any St John vehicles.
• No auditing in any form (ePRFs, MTS, Remote Triage, Dispatching, Call Taking, Air Desk, NOEC, HTOC, DCMs, CHTLs) including members working in ambulance operations (including North and South Communication Centres).
• Non-compliance with any and all employer requirements relating to entering case/closing codes.
• The usage of code 815 for any and all case/closing codes.

• Media and social media policy ban: FIRST Union members are not observing restrictive ‘no-comms’ clauses that prohibit them from talking to media or posting on social media regarding the service.
• Closing jobs on an 815 code: members are not observing specific requirements related to emergency service data collection, limiting St John’s ability to easily bill patients and collect data on services provided to them by ambulance officers.
• Strike badges: members are wearing strike badges in place of name tags on their St John uniform.
• Emergency ambulance service ban on non-urgent patient transfer services: members are not performing duties related to the non-urgent transfer of patients in additional to normal duties.
• No station duties/portfolios: members will not perform additional tasks in stations (e.g. taking bins out, cleaning toilets, putting away linen).
• No remote telehealth jobs: members are not fulfilling low-acuity jobs that are passed on to St John staff in addition to normal duties to reduce ambulance callouts.
• Ban on manning ambulance waiting areas: members are not manning ambulance waiting areas (the replacement for “ramping”) outside hospitals while patients are made to wait for assistance.
• Chalking of work vehicles: members are chalking ambulances with strike messages for the public to seek their support for full funding of the service.
• No updating Fire and Emergency Response times: members intend to stop St John from using this data as part of their response Key Performance Indicators as it is not an ambulance.