St John ambulance workers will strike today over claims of unfair pay and misuse of staff.
Around 1000 workers will walk off the job on Wednesday after mediation talks between First Union - which represents the workers - and St John stalled last week.
Staff are refusing to carry out non-emergency work for the day, while St John says it's working on finding an agreement to resolve the issue.
- Hundreds of ambulance workers to strike
- St John frontline staff abused and beaten on the job
- St John dealing with multiple callouts for the same synthetic cannabis patients
The strike action comes after complaints of no extra pay for workers who are rostered on for weekends and nights. But St John says the extra pay has been factored into the hourly rate.
First Union divisional secretary Jared Abbott disputes this, saying the starting rate for staff is below $20 an hour, so if recognition payments for night and weekend work are factored into this, "many ambulance professionals would have to be on below the minimum wage".
"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.
"[Ambulance staff] have been really clear about not doing anything that would disrupt the public, and what we really want is support from the public to put pressure on the Government [and] on organisations like St John to actually reward them properly," Mr Abbott told Newshub.
He claims that because it's difficult for ambulance workers to take strike action, being an emergency service, "that's been used to hold wages back".
Frontline emergency crews have also raised concerns over their services being offered up to cover private hire for sporting and other commercial events run by private business, rather than for emergencies, which is what the majority of Government funding should cover.
"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," said Mr Abbott.
The union has raised further concerns that St John has overlooked calls to approach the Government and lobby to become a fully-funded service, rather than rely on volunteers and commercial activities.
The strike action begins on Wednesday and will continue until an agreement is reached, First Union says. Members have also voted in favour of two further strike actions.
Meanwhile, primary teachers are continuing their rolling strike action today. It's Canterbury's turn as they walk off the job over pay and staffing issues.
It's the second strike in three months.
Newshub.
