News

The following is a list of all industrial actions that have been notified. Clarification for some action is provided in italics.

General

• Employees will wear union t-shirts while performing work.
• Training employees (excluding Graduate Ambulance Paramedics).
  • The ban does not apply to training employees undertaking RTW or RATP programs, or the induction of newly employed QAPs.

The following actions are notified only for employees who were eligible to vote in the first ballot:

• Employees will undertake stoppages of work to communicate with the media about the enterprise bargaining campaign and ambulance resourcing.
• Employees will not perform any work unless they are able to publish information on social media during work time about the enterprise bargaining campaign and ambulance resourcing.
• Employees will undertake stoppages of work of ten minutes to distribute campaign material and speak to patients and members of the public about the purpose of taking industrial action.
  • Stoppages will not be taken in a way that will delay a paramedic from attending a case.

An indefinite ban on employees:

• Attending meetings with management via phone or video conference.
• Attending meetings with management at a location other than the employee’s home branch.
• Undertaking training or education via the Learning Management System.
• Appearing in Ambulance Victoria social media posts unless wearing campaign clothing.
• Endorsing or signing off on competencies, other than for Graduate Ambulance Paramedics.
• Reporting or recording employees’ participation in industrial action.

On road paramedics

Employees will undertake stoppages of work to write enterprise bargaining campaign messages on the outside of Ambulance Victoria vehicles.

Employees will not use Ambulance Victoria vehicles to perform work unless enterprise bargaining campaign messages are written on the outside of the vehicle.

An indefinite ban on employees:

• Performing work unless they are wearing a union t-shirt.
• Using status update buttons, instead providing status updates via radio. This action will not apply during a Code Orange or Code Red period.
• Clearing cases until a PCR case has been completed.
• Paramedics working more than 8 weeks’ reserve per annum (being the “reserve year” commencing 13 November 2023).
• TMs, STMs and Paramedic Educators reporting to VACAR, the Victorian Ambulance STEMI Quality Initiative and Limited Occurrence Screening.

The following actions are notified only for employees who were eligible to vote in the first ballot:

An indefinite ban on employees:

• Recording patient details in to the Victorian Ambulance Clinical Information System (VACIS) and instead using a hard copy Patient Care Record (PCR).
• Completing patient details on Ambulance Victoria copy of PCR.
• Taking billing details from patients.
• Updating arrivals boards at hospitals.
• Performing tasks at hospital that are outside of the paramedic role.
  • Tasks that will not be performed include but are not limited to taking blood samples and moving patients to an area of a hospital other than an a designated ED bed.
• ALS paramedics driving MICA single responder vehicles from scene to hospital.
• Participating in clinical trials.
• Remaining with a patient in a hospital ambulance bay or inside a hospital after a period of 40 minutes has elapsed, unless ambulance beacons are activated.
  • Where are paramedics are inside the hospital, one will remain with the patient while the other returns to the ambulance for the purpose of activating the beacons.
• Being assigned to perform the Ambulance Patient Offload Team (APOT) role.

MICA

An indefinite ban on MICA paramedics:

• Performing Clinical Instructing duties.

NEPT

NEPT and CTS employees will return to branch for meal breaks.

An indefinite ban on NEPT employees:

• Other than CTOs, double loading patients.
• CTOs transporting more than 2 patients simultaneously.
• Patient Transport Officers acting in the role of Ambulance Transport Attendant.

ACOs

An indefinite ban on ACOs:

• Using the Whispr program.
• Performing interhospital transfers.
• Performing vehicle and medication checks in unpaid time.
• Performing community engagement activities unless they are allowed to speak to the public about enterprise bargaining.
• Moving vehicles for Fleet.

Triage

• Triage practitioners will answer all questions in every open question set in Adastra (including coloured and black question sets).

An indefinite ban on Triage Practitioners:

• Using Video Assisted Triage.
• Using Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) connector, and instead manually entering case details in Adastra.
• Downgrading of outcomes suggested by Adastra.
• Performing triage duties unless the employee may advise a caller how many cases require an ambulance and are pending and current fleet availability.
• Referral Team Leaders monitoring the duration of employees’ After Call Work.
• Attending daily huddle meetings.
• Working on IT-related issues and instead lodging a ticket with the service desk for any IT-related issue.

Communications

An indefinite ban on communications employees:

• Answering queries from the AV media unit.
• Using templates.
• Using fleet or fleet maintenance centre logs.
• Recording of equipment locker entries.
• Updating access codes.
• Recording Emergency Management Unit entries on Emergency Response Plan spreadsheet.
• Recording issues on the Duty Manager log.
• Using the Duty Manager eLog.
• Logging external complaints.
• Answering rostering or payroll enquires from employees.
• Responding to written requests or complaints from management about the handling of events.
• Responding to enquiries about NETCOMM and ERTCOMM estimated time of arrival.
• Assisting or providing information to medical monitoring groups.
• The performance of incidental overtime by SECC employees.
• The use of Optima Live by SECC employees.
• Responding to enquiries about after hours recalls for area coverage, instead directing those enquiries to the Regional Duty Manager.
• Attending meetings with a manager wearing an operational uniform unless they are a registered practitioner with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.
• Making taxi bookings/Uber Health bookings for patient transport.

Clinicians

An indefinite ban on clinicians performing the following tasks:

• Downgrading of events (except if safety related, eg. downgrading from lights and sirens response).
• Providing in person support to call takers, instead only providing support by dialling in.
• Completing CAD annotation of NEPT no transports.

TMs and STMs

An indefinite ban on TMs and STMs performing the following tasks:

• Participating in the negotiation of FWAs with team members.
• Completing medication checks on EMIS, and instead completing medication checks on paper.
• Conducting formal informal counselling of employees.
• Attending municipal emergency management meetings.
• Conducting reporting of response and clearing time performance.

CSOs

An indefinite ban on CSOs performing the following tasks:

• Completing Mod 5/9 involvement.
• Completing all endorsement paperwork.
• Completing SRU IFO assessments.
• Performing functions in accordance with the clinical calendar/clinical plan.
• Performing LOS/case audits.
• Performing duties outside of allocated Ambulance Service Area.
  • CSOs will still respond to provide patient care outside their ASA, and Metropolitan CSOs will continue to undertake Clinician duties at the SECC.

Rosters

An indefinite ban on Rosters employees:

• Contacting reserve/senior reserve/RSRP staff to allocate shifts until 59 minutes prior to the shift start time.
• Using the roster kiosk to make roster or shift allocation requests, instead making requests by telephone call.

AAV

An indefinite ban on AAV employees performing the following tasks:

• Recording patient details into the Ambflight system.
• Taking observers (ARV/NETS) on aircraft.
• Flight Centre Co-Ordinators and MICA Flight Paramedics entering flight times into Ambflight.
• Single officer Flight Paramedics double loading patients.
  • This will not apply to unplanned ERCOM events.

In solidarity,