Ambulance Officers Vote To Strike Again After Rejecting Ratification Of St John Offer

Around 1,100 FIRST Union ambulance officers have voted for a second withdrawal of labour at Hato Hone St John, which will take place on the 27th and 30th of September for the first six hours of rostered shifts across the country. The strike action commences at 4am on both dates and continues for 24 hours each time.

Ambulance officers have this week voted to reject ratification of a pay offer from St John for 17 months, which included minimal pay increases below the rate of inflation (3.25% for 12 months and 3% for 7 months) and failed to address any other concerns around conditional parity with other health workers. Faye McCann, FIRST Union national ambulance organiser, said that the message from politicians and St John appeared to be that ambulance officers should take an effective pay cut while waiting until the expiry of the current 4-year funding agreement in 2026 before the Government would reassess funding needs.

"There is no way in hell that ambulance officers can wait til 2026 for a fair pay offer - a massive exodus to other health roles will continue and the service will be fundamentally crippled by then," said Ms McCann.

"FIRST Union rejected the offer by a large margin and have voted for a longer second unpaid withdrawal of labour that aims to communicate the urgent need for funding fair pay increases."

Ms McCann said ambulance officers were confused and disappointed by the political situation surrounding funding, with health Ministers Reti and Costello still absent from view and providing no leadership. She said that St John CEO Peter Bradley recently circulated an internal blog to all staff confirming that "This message has taken some getting through to politicians, despite sending at least four letters and having five face-to-face meetings with Cabinet Ministers and the Prime Minister in recent months. As I said to a senior Health New Zealand official this week, hearing in the media that we do not want to be 100% funded for all our ambulance service operating costs is simply not correct!"

Ms McCann said the blog had frustrated ambulance officers.

"It’s nice to say for St John but hard to hear for ambulance officers - Peter Bradley knows there’s a major funding gap and critical need, but St John have been ineffective in persuading politicians of the urgency for fully funding ambulance service operational costs now," said Ms McCann.

"Prime Minister Chris Luxon is also clearly aware and comfortable with the fact that ambulance officers are at breaking point but will pursue an austerity strategy for health funding that will decimate our emergency response capacity."

On Wednesday and Thursday this week, FIRST Union delegates at St John hosted a conference with Australian ambulance officers from the Australasian Council of Ambulance Unions to share knowledge and information about similar issues across the Tasman.

"Australian ambulance officers were appalled to hear that St John relies on charity funding in Aotearoa and noted that the worst management of the ambulance service in Australia tends to occur in the states where St John is the provider, like Western Australia and the Northern Territory," said Ms McCann.

"We cannot push the boat out to 2026 on funding for a failing health service that we all depend on during the most serious and severe events of our lives."

"There will be no experienced ambulance officers left to negotiate with by 2026."

Ms McCann confirmed that FIRST Union would again enter negotiations over a Life Preserving Services Agreement (LPS) with St John for the upcoming withdrawal of labour to ensure minimum emergency response capacity for serious incidents.

"To get a picture of how bad things are right now, the last LPS we negotiated with St John actually led to higher staffing levels on strike days than on many ordinary shifts," said Ms McCann.

"That implies that St John’s regular staffing levels on ordinary workdays are not high enough to ensure a minimum life-saving capacity - until they vote to go on strike."

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