Hundreds of ambulance workers employed by St John will undertake a series of strikes in November.
First union said in a statement the strike action was being taken due to a lack of extra pay for when workers are rostered on for weekends and nights. According to the union St John has claimed the extra pay has been factored into the hourly rate."The starting rate is below $20 an hour, if recognition payments for night and weekend work are factored into this, many ambulance professionals would have to be on below the minimum wage," First Union divisional secretary Jared Abbott said.
"To claim that the current rates account for shift recognition is incorrect. New Zealand's Ambulance Professionals are amongst the lowest paid in the developed world."The union said strike action was served to St John at the beginning of the week. The strike action means staff will not be covering work where other staff have been removed from duty to do event work."Event work, which is commercial income for St John, often gets priority over frontline services, so by refusing to come off the frontline to cover events actually makes more ambulance officers available for the public service. Action will begin on November 14 and continue until an agreement is reached. Members have also voted in favour of two further strike actions.
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