More than 2,000 staff employed by the National Ambulance Service are to vote on a deal that would provide gross pay increases to the basic pay of more than 20 per cent to paramedics. The increase would be in return for changes to work practices and the loss of various premium payments.
Members of trade unions Siptu and Unite have until September 1st to vote on the proposals. If they are agreed, this would end an almost seven-year-long process that has included a wide-ranging review of grades, structures, work practices and pay in the service.
A deal had been agreed earlier in the year, but this faltered when it became clear the ambulance service wanted immediate implementation of the work practices envisaged, while seeking to stagger the pay increases over nearly 3½ years.
After the initial agreement had been brokered with the help of the Workplace Relations Commission, the Labour Court has now published a binding recommendation that all of the proposed pay increases would take effect from August 1st.
Under the terms of the deal, which affects emergency medical technicians, paramedics and advanced paramedics, staff could be routinely rostered to work five across seven days. Premiums paid for Saturday and Sunday shifts, as well as public holidays, would be consolidated into basic, pensionable pay.
In return for the changes, the more than 1,800 paramedics affected would see entry-level pay for their grade increase from €37,137 to €46,012, with the highest level of pay for the grade, including service increments, increasing from €46,939 to €63,182.
Both of the unions involved are recommending acceptance of the proposal. Siptu health sector organiser John McCamley said the union believes the terms give effect to the findings of the independent review of the sector.
The scale of the pay increases, he said, varied significantly according to role and grade and needed to be viewed in the context of existing payments being consolidated. However, the wider agreement gives effect to many of the report’s recommendations and also grants recognition as healthcare professionals to paramedics, a status they do not have.
“It doesn’t address every issue,” he said. “There are lots of other issues in the National Ambulance Service, but it does address those recommendations. We are recommending this on the basis that we hope it would put to bed a long-standing dispute.”
Asked, meanwhile, about recent reports of women members of staff suggesting there is a “toxic” workplace culture at the service, Mr McCamley replied that he was aware of several complaints. “Some of them minor, some of them much more serious,” he said. He noted that the time it was taking to deal with these was being reduced, but further improvements were needed.
