About 2,000 Siptu members working in the National Ambulance Service are to be balloted on industrial action, after the union accused management of seeking to contract out some services without consultation.
Siptu’s John McCamley said staff at the service had been “incensed” by the move, and he expected the union’s members, who include paramedics and emergency medical technicians (EMTs), to vote in favour of action in the ballot which should be complete by the end of the month.
“I’ve never seen a situation where we have been sidelined to such an extent, where management would go ahead with something of anything like this significance without any reference to the staff,” he said on Friday.
The new dispute follows the rejection by ambulance staff last week of proposals intended to end a long-running and wide-ranging stand-off over basic pay, work practices and staffing within the service.
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Mr McCamley said many of the union’s members believe there is a link between the staff’s decision to reject, by a considerable margin, that deal, which had been brokered by the Workplace Relations Commission and Labour Court and recommended by the unions, and the latest move by management.
“One of the biggest issues in that was to do with minimum crewing standards and it seems that by outsourcing the work of the EMTs (who do not have the same qualifications as paramedics) who carry out a lot of the inter-hospital transfers, the hope is that they can be freed up and used to plug gaps elsewhere in the service. But we don’t believe that is the way to address staff shortages. You need to do that by hiring people.”
In a statement, the HSE said it had been notified of the union’s position but was not aware of any move to outsource inter-hospital transfers and remained committed to staffing these operations through the National Ambulance Service.
It said the union had escalated the matter in accordance with agreed procedures and the issue would be addressed at a meeting scheduled to take place next week.
