News

To date there have been 79 bargaining meetings with Ambulance Victoria (AV) and the Victorian Government to reach agreement on a new enterprise agreement to cover our members at AV.

An initial settlement offer was presented to the workforce on 20 December 2023. In an SMS poll of the VAU members working for AV, over 86% rejected that offer. On 29 February 2024, a second settlement offer was tabled which included four additional items.

MICA salary uplift.

• All MICA paramedics from MICA Trainee upwards to receive an initial uplift of $12,500.
• Uplift to apply to Rolled in Rate (RIR), meaning RIR would increase by no more than $12,500. Historically all increases have applied to Aggregated Base Rates of pay and a further re-calculation of the RIR completed.
• The union is seeking that the increase applies to the aggregated base rate.

MICA Program Salary Maintenance.

• Employees who enter the MICA Trainee classification from a nominal position that is paid at a higher rate than the MICA Trainee rate, will maintain the nominal salary until the applicable MICA salary is higher.
• This addresses VAU claim 6.9.2.

End of Shift Management Model:

• AV propose to introduce the current End-of-shift management model that exists in policy into the EBA. This includes:
  • Code 1 warning after completion of shifts less than 10 hours duration.
  • Priority 0 warning after completion of shifts between 10 – 14 hours duration.
  • Priority 0 warning until case completed then out of service for shifts greater than 14 hours duration.
• AV also propose to introduce the following:
  • Restriction on Code 3 dispatch in last hour.
• The VAU claim is for preventative strategies including:
  • Code 1 warning in last hour of shift.
  • Priority 0 warning in last 15 minutes of shift.
  • Out of service at the completion of any shift.

Additional Wage Increments:

• AV have agreed to extend the classification structure in Appendix 1 classification model by adding up to Year 12 increment. This means that ALS and MICA classifications that currently have annual progression between levels 1-9 will receive additional levels 10, 11 and 12. Specialist classifications that contain levels 1,3,6 and 9 will receive an additional level 12.
• The VAU claim is that classifications including Ambulance Community Officers, Clinic Transport Officers, Patient Transport Officers, Ambulance Transport Attendants and MICA SRU should be included in annual progression. We also support the UWU claim to have Fleet Maintenance Staff included in the structure. This is not agreed by AV and Government.

Note: all items presented in bargaining meetings are without prejudice and subject to final approval.

Other key areas that remain outstanding include:

• The introduction of an ACO standby allowance.
• Payment of the ARU allowances for all purposes.
• Increases to unsociable shift allowances.
• Travel allowances for full shift overtime.
• Increased Clinical Instructor allowances and introduction of an indirect supervision allowance.
• Improvements to On-call provisions.
• Correcting relativity issues for Senior Resourcing Officers and Referral Service Team Leaders.
• An improved rural shift allocation model that reduces ‘spare’ and provides the right to reasonably refuse to work at a non-home branch location.
• Improved Reserve, Relieving, Senior Relieving provisions.
• New workload clause.
• New right to disconnect clause.
• Improvements to disciplinary clause.
• Improvements to meal allowances.
• Communications Centre Allowance for admins support officers who work in a communications centre.  
• Access to screen breaks.
• New OHS clause.
• Improvements and protections for Administration Staff.
• Payment of 50% of sick leave on transition to retirement or on medical grounds.

These are all claims that we continue to pursue vigorously at the bargaining table. Ultimately it is up to the members to determine when agreement is reached.

The emphatic uptake of industrial action this week has sent a very strong message that we are a long way from an acceptable agreement.

In solidarity.