News
30th June, 2023
Ambulance Victoria Enterprise Bargaining Update 006- is Rural Reserve rearing its ugly head again?
To date there have been over thirty-one meetings with Ambulance Victoria (AV) to negotiate a new agreement to replace the Ambulance Victoria Enterprise Agreement 2020. In our previous bulletin dated 20 June 2023, members were informed of high-level claims put forward by AV in their Log of Claims (LOC). We have now started exploring those claims in more detail.
The AV claims discussed in detail this week included:
- Reviewing Reserve and Relieving clauses – Improve compensation for employees who work flexibly, improve community coverage, building on existing allowances for members who work at another location on a planned roster and flexible until start of shift.
AV propose altering the way that members are paid for working flexibly including the introduction of a new higher allowance to be payable when a member is rostered to day-to-day reserve.
In Rural Regions, AV wish to utilise clause 37.1 of the current EA to roster employees to a non-home branch location for a full roster cycle and pay the current Temporary Reserve Payment (TRP). However, these movements would not be voluntary or require agreement from the employee.
The VAU position is that any movement of staff must be voluntary and occur under the voluntary RSRP and short term RSRP provisions. Any direction to move rural members from their home branch to work full shifts at an alternate location is only ever rural reserve by another name. The VAU believe that AV are not utilising the current voluntary RSRP arrangements and clauses already in the current EA effectively, and that an improved voluntary process will deliver the fairest and most effective resource allocation model.
The parties have committed to further discussions regarding an improved model. However, it is disappointing that AV continue to revisit something that has been rejected so many times by the workforce.
Further, yesterday a number of union claims were either rejected outright or rejected in lieu of an alternative proposal by AV (to be included in policy). 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)
It is looking more and more likely that members will need to take industrial action in order to progress the claims that will keep our experienced workforce in the job. 76% of our AV members have nominated the VAU as their bargaining representative and are ready to fight.
If you want to fight alongside your workmates for improvements to your wages and conditions, use the link located in the bulletin in your email inbox. This will provide you with the link to nominate the VAU as your bargaining representative via email. Encourage your workmates to join the VAU if they haven’t already and/or ask them to nominate the VAU as their bargaining representative as soon as they do.
None of the VAU claims have been withdrawn. All claims remain on the table, and we will continue to advance all the claims in your log of claims, and bargain for the improvements that are important to you all.