St John Ambos In "Political Limbo" As Shifts Go Unfilled And Strike Actions Intensify

FIRST Union ambulance officers are confirming new strike actions and pushing back against incorrect and misleading claims by St John and politicians about recruitment and staffing levels.

Faye McCann, FIRST Union National ambulance organiser, says previously ratified industrial actions like the chalking of St John ambulances with public messages and the wearing of strike badges in place of name plates are now active, with ambulance officers taking part across the country (other active strike actions are detailed at the bottom of this press release).

For a gallery of images of St John members on strike, please click here. Media outlets are permitted to publish these images.

"Ambulance officers are now in political limbo, with no new bargaining dates set with St John and Government Ministers hiding from the spotlight and hoping this will all blow over soon and be forgotten," said Ms McCann.

"But ambulance officers can’t stand by, or wait patiently til the Government goes into their next election campaign, promising the world - the consequences of underfunding are dire and already being felt widely across the country."

Ms McCann said recent comments from St John general manager for ambulance operations, Stu Cockburn, and Casey Costello, Associate Minister of Health, regarding recruitment and staffing levels at St John are misleading and disingenuous. Mr Cockburn told RNZ that "the service had a low turnover rate and that recent recruitment campaigns were successful", and Ms Costello said "St John's vacancy rate is the lowest it has been in a long time."

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Ms McCann said that the Associate Minister should be engaging with ambulance officers directly regarding underfunding rather than taking the word of St John as gospel, because the ambulance service was too focused on political self-preservation and were not adequately representing workers' or patients' needs.

Ms McCann pointed to the many text alerts that St John ambulance officers receive regularly advising them of vacant shifts due to low staffing levels in many regions, confirming that the underfunded service is already struggling to meet public demand for an emergency response.

Examples of the text alerts St John members receive to their work phones are available here.

"If that’s what a fully-staffed and adequately funded service looks like, we should all be very concerned," said Ms McCann.

"There’s something darkly ironic about workers being told the service is in the best shape it’s been for years, that they don’t need extra staff or better pay, while they are simultaneously being asked to cover understaffed shifts every day despite being on strike over this very issue."

"If Ministers Reti and Costello can’t step up and provide any certainty that the Government will urgently intervene to increase St John funding, we’ll be waiting for the next White Island or Christchurch earthquake before the massive gap between funding levels and actual public need become tragically obvious to all of us and it's far too late to do anything about it."

"The Government’s philosophy of austerity is crippling our emergency services, and the approach taken with Police and Fire negotiations in recent months show that all of our first responders are being neglected and disrespected by politicians who are totally out of touch with reality."

Ms McCann said FIRST Union members are St John were currently participating in the following active strike actions, with further possibilities to be voted on by ambulance officers in the coming weeks:

• Media and social media policy ban: FIRST Union members are not observing restrictive ‘no-comms’ clauses that prohibit them from talking to media or posting on social media regarding the service.
• Closing jobs on an 815 code: members are not observing specific requirements related to emergency service data collection, limiting St John’s ability to easily bill patients and collect data on services provided to them by ambulance officers.
• Strike badges: members are wearing strike badges in place of name tags on their St John uniform.
• Emergency ambulance service ban on non-urgent patient transfer services: members are not performing duties related to the non-urgent transfer of patients in additional to normal duties.
• No station duties/portfolios: members will not perform additional tasks in stations (e.g. taking bins out, cleaning toilets, putting away linen).
• No remote telehealth jobs: members are not fulfilling low-acuity jobs that are passed on to St John staff in addition to normal duties to reduce ambulance callouts.
• Ban on manning ambulance waiting areas: members are not manning ambulance waiting areas (the replacement for "ramping") outside hospitals while patients are made to wait for assistance.
• Chalking of work vehicles: members are chalking ambulances with strike messages for the public to seek their support for full funding of the service.

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