News

To date there have been over thirty-three meetings with Ambulance Victoria (AV) to negotiate a new agreement to replace the Ambulance Victoria Enterprise Agreement 2020.

In our previous bulletin dated 30 June 2023, the VAU informed members of a number of claims being rejected. This includes claims relating to:

• End of shift management (claims 10.3.1,2,3 & 4)
• Converting incidental overtime to timebank (claim 10.2.1)
• On-call allowances for ACOs (6.1.2)
• AP12 allocation (9.3.1,2 &3)
• Inclusion of a Personal and Family Circumstances Panel (9.1.2)
• Location of work claims (9.1.1,3 & 4)
• Forming additional crews at branch when rostered to spare (claim 9.2.7)
• Allowing staff on FWAs to elect to undertake flexible shifts (claim 9.2.8)
• Team Transfers (claims 9.4.1,2,3,4 & 5)
• On-call branches (claim 9.5.1 & 2)

In more recent meetings AV have also rejected further claims relating to:

• Rostering (claims 8.1 1,2,3,4,6 & 7)
• Filling of vacancies with appropriately qualified staff (claims 8.2 1 & 2)
• Full shift overtime (claims 10.1 1-5)
• Incidental overtime (claims 1-3, 5-6)
• Timebank (claims 11.10 4 & 5)
• Part time and flexible work arrangements (claims 14 3-5 & 7)
• Vehicle, Equipment and medication Preparation (claims 17. 1-3)
• Salary packaging (claims 16 1&2)

AV have also rejected claim 17.4 which sought a commitment to provide staff with clear and reasonable payslips as they are unable to commit that their payroll system will be able to produce them.

NOTHING LEARNED FROM VEOHRC

AV also rejected the VAU claim to allow members to remove the following clause from the Agreement:

23.8 Clause 11 of this Agreement does not apply to this clause except where the subject matter of the grievance or dispute arises under clause 23.4 or section 65(5) of the Act.

This clause limits access to the grievance procedure. If AV were to respond to a request for an FWA by saying “we don’t believe you are a carer” or “we don’t believe you have a disability” or “we don’t believe you are a parent of a school age child” or “we don’t believe you are over 55”, clause 23.8 prohibits the member lodging a formal grievance.

Following the many statements that AV have made to the workforce and the public over the past two years, we thought that no employer in their right mind would reject this claim.

AV – “hold my beer”.

CLAIMS ACCEPTED

So far only a small number of claims have been accepted or supported in part. Currently these relate to:

• Hour counts (claim 8.1 5)
• Permanent part time provisions (claim 14.1)
• ACO drivers license reimbursement (claim 6.1 6)
• Headphones to be added to lost or damaged property clause (claim 27.1)

AV have stated that alternative improvements will be provided in due course but are waiting for the Executive to approve them before they can be provided to the unions.

A JOB FOR LIFE!

Don’t accept that ambulance is a job for 3-5 years. Your employer doesn’t seem phased by this. It is up to you, the workers to rescue the ambulance service and rebuild it as a sustainable career. The time to do that is through enterprise bargaining including industrial action to secure meaningful improvements to your wages and conditions of work. Commit to fighting alongside your workmates by contacting the VAU. Encourage your workmates to join the VAU if they haven’t already and nominate so they can take industrial action when the time comes.