NSW paramedics are taking industrial action in a bid to force meetings with the government to secure pay rises and more staff, Jack Gramenz from AAP reports.
Members of the Australia Paramedics Association will throughout Tuesday refuse to transfer stations from the one where they start their shift to fill roster gaps, as well as not undertaking non-urgent patient transfers.
Those in the north of the state are being excluded from the APA’s industrial action due to the flood recovery effort.
Multiple unions represent paramedics and the Health Services Union, which claims to represent “the vast and overwhelming bulk of the state’s ambulance workforce” says it has no industrial action planned.
APA NSW assistant secretary Alan O’Riordan told AAP he expects “probably very, very little” will actually come out of Tuesday’s industrial action and “we will just be ignored yet again”.
Although “the government just keeps ignoring us,” O’Riordan said paramedics will still take action, seeking an extra 1,500 paramedics and a “meaningful pay increase” in the neighbourhood of 3% to 5%.
He said the extra paramedics would help replace those leaving the workforce, but more would be needed to meet the state’s requirements.
There’s also a need for more specialist paramedics in regional and rural areas, O’Riordan said, and the government needs to acknowledge the problems in the paramedic workforce and begin meeting with the union to provide NSW with a “well resourced, well staffed ambulance service”.
The office of health minister Brad Hazzard has been contacted for comment.
Meanwhile, the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association is planning industrial action for Thursday, when members will go on strike and rally around the state in protest over what it calls inaction on nurse-patient ratios by the government.
Members of NSWNMA previously took strike action in February and held rallies around the state and outside parliament house as politicians returned for the first sitting day of the year.
More union branches have voted to join the strike on Thursday since the February action.
The Industrial Relations Commission ordered the union to cancel the action by the end of the day on Monday however the union said it will push on and told members only the union can be fined, not individual members.