The two unions representing paramedics and other staff in the National Ambulance Service are to recommend proposals made on Wednesday by the Labour Court, which has said it would deliver pay increases of up 23 per cent.
Those largest percentage increases would go to paramedics with at least 10 years’ service who would see their basic pay jump from €47,908 to €59,157.
The scale of wider increases being proposed vary considerably, starting at 5 per cent for entry-level specialist paramedics, but a majority of the 1,800 staff who took industrial action would stand to receive significant increases to their basic pay.
The unions, Siptu and Unite, say the money now on the table addresses claims for historic changes in work practices which have involved staff taking on substantially more responsibility and holding higher qualifications.
RM Block
A new process will be put in place to deal with future claims related to modernisation and other changes to terms and conditions.
Speaking after a meeting of the Irish Ambulance Representative Council, a body on which officials from both unions sit, John McCamley, the senior Siptu organiser in the sector, said both will recommend a deal they believe “vindicated the decision of our members to take strike action”.
“In general terms the vast majority of what we sought has been included in the document,” he said. “The pay increases are significant and unlike what was offered before; they are genuine rather than being linked to further changes in the way our members work.
“It also sets out a two-step process, with the increases we felt were due from what was done over the past 16 years being dealt with and the court saying an independent third party will be appointed to look at any future changes that are requested. It means we will get away from the position we were in which was that every time the staff got a pay increase, management came looking for a whole raft of new work practices.
“This represents real recognition of the training and qualifications our members have. It basically addresses the sort of historical link that existed between these staff and a number of groups of other health and social care professionals. The feeling was that a pay injustice had developed as that link was lost because our members were asked to hold similar qualifications to those other staff but without getting the same pay.”
[ Ambulance service staff call off next week’s planned strikeOpens in new window ]
In most of the instances outlined in the court’s proposals the more substantial increases come at the higher end of the pay scale for experienced staff, something that was repeatedly identified as an issue by staff who participated in the strike.
Briefings on the proposals are to start on Monday with a ballot of the two unions’ members to open within days of that. Two previous sets of proposals were rejected by the unions’ members but McCamley expressed confidence that this would be regarded as going significantly further than either of those.
