Ambulance Tasmania staff are taking industrial action over “critical” understaffing issues that have left emergency call centres without operators at times.
The Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) says the shortages have been so severe that both long and short-term vacancies have meant all triple-zero call taker positions on the roster have been empty for certain shifts.
“Staff are extremely angry at the current circumstances which Ambulance Tasmania don’t appear to consider serious,” HACSU delegate Becc Gibson said.
“Last week we asked for an urgent meeting and were told to wait until 12 December. Our members are exhausted and sick and tired of being treated this way.”
According to the union, management has “exploited” the goodwill of employees who have adjusted their shifts at short notice to cover shortages and withdrawn an arrangement to compensate staff for these changes.
An Ambulance Tasmania spokesperson disputed this, saying senior leadership met with the union on Friday where they were told overtime payments had not been withdrawn.
“Ambulance Tasmania (AT) acknowledges and appreciates the hard work and commitment of staff in the communications centre and all staff across AT,” they said.
“AT will continue to negotiate with staff around overtime payments when asking staff to change either shift start and finish times.”
Ambulance Tasmania will next meet with the union on Thursday.
“AT continues to actively recruit to vacancies, noting that this is a specialised field and that other ambulance services across the country are also having difficulty in recruiting in this area,” the spokesperson said.
HACSU state secretary Robbie Moore said the action will not affect any triple-zero responses from the ambulance communications centre.
“The action relates to the process management will need to implement to seek approval for short-term shift changes and how our members should be compensated,” he said.
“Additional bans have been implemented today to remove additional workload from communications centre staff until this dispute is resolved.”
