News

The VAU brought a case to the Fair Work Commission for one of our members and successfully argued that MICA paramedics can’t be required to perform alternative duties that don’t involve their principal duties without their agreement. We brought this dispute to the Fair Work Commission for a member who was made to perform administrative duties while AV investigated them for over nine months. 

VAU lawyers argued this case at the Commission and won against AV’s barrister and a top tier law firm. AV then appealed our win to the Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission, and we were successful again. This time the VAU lawyers briefed one barrister to appear for our member against AV’s two barristers and a law firm.

This new decision secures the rights that members have bargained for in the Enterprise Agreement to not be made to work menial jobs that don’t involve their paramedic duties without their consent. The decision would also apply to ALS and MICA paramedics.

In the appeal AV ran a new argument it didn’t run when we first appeared before the Commission. AV argued that MICA Single Responders aren’t MICA paramedics under clause 28.1(k) of the Enterprise Agreement, the clause that sets out the principal duties of MICA paramedics, and therefore that Single Responders don’t benefit from the requirement that their agreement be sought before they are made to work a job that doesn’t involve their principal duties.

The Commission saw through this argument and found that the Agreement was sufficiently clear that the principal duties and skills of a MICA paramedic set out in the Agreement applied to MICA paramedics generally, including MICA SRU.

This is a great win for members. We will continue to protect members and take disputes to the Fair Work Commission when AV breaches the Enterprise Agreement.

We continue to demand that the PSBD finish their investigations in a reasonable time. No member should be suspended for over nine months no matter what misconduct they are alleged to have committed. Taking an unreasonable period of time to investigate is against the Enterprise Agreement and results in poor outcomes for both members who complain and members who respond to investigations.

In Solidarity