Paramedics have voted to step up work bans, including holding stop-work meetings across Victoria as part of their pay dispute with the state government.
About 1700 paramedics voted in favour of 22 new work bans, which could take effect from this weekend, in a ballot held on Friday.
Ambulance Employees Australia state secretary Steve McGhie said his members wanted to send a message to the state government to “get serious” about offering them a fair deal on pay and conditions.
Paramedics have been negotiating with Ambulance Victoria and the government since August 2012 over a new enterprise bargaining agreement, after demanding a pay rise of 30 per cent over three years.
In November, they rejected a government pay offer of 12 per cent over three years because it would have allowed Ambulance Victoria to argue for more “workplace flexibility”, including cutting back on entitlements, before the Fair Work Commission.
Paramedics have already implemented some work bans and have been wearing campaign T-shirts and writing campaign material on ambulances.
But the new bans go further and could include stop-work meetings and paramedics inviting journalists and politicians to ride in ambulances as observers.
“If we get to it, and we all hope we don’t, there could be a series of stop-work meetings around the state if we can’t get this dispute resolved,” Mr McGhie said.
The union is required to provide Ambulance Victoria with three working days’ notice of any work bans it intends to implement.
The new work bans have been approved by the Fair Work Commission but could be challenged by Ambulance Victoria if it received notice of any ban it believed would put the public at risk.
Ambulance Victoria has previously said it is bound by the government’s public-sector wage policy of 2.5 per cent a year, with any further rises to be traded for productivity gains.
Health Minister David Davis said it was ‘‘disappointing that the hardline ambulance union has decided to take industrial action’’ after refusing a significant pay offer.
He said any move by paramedics to stop work would be of concern to the government and community.
‘‘Without an ambulance service our patients would be exposed and there would be significant risk,’’ he said.
Ambulance Victoria general manager of regional services Tony Walker said the service was trying to resolve the dispute and would ‘‘seek to terminate any industrial action that impacts on our service and would affect the safety and welfare of the community.’’
