‪If St Johns treated their patients as badly as they do their workers the ambulances would be hearses – why hasn’t this been Nationalised?

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The appalling manner in which St Johns are treating their workers is in stark contrast to the care values their industry is supposed to stand for.

They have docked their workers pay for daring to wear Union T-shirts and have now spat in the face of good faith bargaining by walking away from negotiations.

St Johns are the first employer in the history of good faith bargaining to simply walk away from the negotiating process all together.

‪If St Johns treated their patients as badly as they do their workers the ambulances would be hearses.

Where is Andrew Little on this?

I’ve never understood why ambulance services became user pays. It seems barbaric to me that if you are in need of safe and immediate transport to a medical facility because of a medical emergency, charging for that is neoliberal cruelty.

Would we ever want to be a society where you the cost of emergency transport is even a consideration when you dial 111?

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Well we are and that should stop, the ambulance service looks like an immediate candidate for re-nationalisation if a genuinely progressive left wing Government ever took place. Looking at the contempt St Johns are treating their current staff with is an indicator that patients must feel that type of spiteful management on a suffice level, ended the most interesting outcome from all of this has been the numerous comments on social media from long regular users of  ambulance services who are incredibly critical of St Johns.

Ambulance drivers and emergency staff should feel our gratitude that they are the first on the scenes of any event, they shouldn’t be treated so miserly and so unethically by their employer. It’s time to kick these bums for touch, re-nationalise the entire service and reinforce, re-capitalise and restore the mana of these workers.

 

10 COMMENTS

  1. Funny thing how there is just – TONS AND TONS of money to spend on the military and sucking up to the UN and greedy criminal corporations by this govt. BUT just not too much money to spend on people and those in need and St. Johns and food banks and on and on and on.
    It is truly and really all about PERCEPTION and Priorities.
    All part of the plan carried out dutifully by this out of touch elitist and highly controlled Natz pseudo govt.

  2. This is a story repeated over and over today in New Zealand. Short of staff, with staff filling in the ever growing gaps, non existent pay raises, slashed budgets that lurches on until, well, it breaks!

    Mental health workers, doctors and nurses, police, CYF workers, the list goes on and on. Ever growing holes with short term accountants mentality meaning horrendous long term consequences.

    National voting New Zealanders voted for tax cuts but what that tax money bought was properly staffed happier public services. It doesn’t exist anymore, not by a long shot. Staff are carrying the can but for how much longer?

  3. St johns has never been run by the government and originally was all volunteer. Sir Tom Skinner was very much involved with St Johns and I believe was fairly instrumental in getting the Auckland headquarters built in the 70’s. He told me at a dinner one night that the building would be completed quickly as “there would be no bloody strikes on this site.”
    Like everything else ambulances are so much more sophisticated I guess their previous source of funds – donations doesn’t cover it any more.
    I see an Ambo pickup in Victoria starts at $700!
    After the Christchurch quakes ambulances and staff came here from various parts of NZ as there was so much work generated by stress. and, strangely, vertigo attacks.
    Seems that these days criticism is the norm but the dozen or so interactions I have had with St Johns have all been incredibly good.
    Sounds like they need some help with management staff relations though.
    Government funding of all ambulances has to come from the same pie. Reduction of something else or a bigger pie by higher taxes?

  4. New Zealand has a better ambulance service now that it is user-pays. I needed and ambulance recently and was happy to pay the $50 callout fee, in order to be transported to the local hospital stat.

    That is the way with all government interference in the private sector. We are on the way towards user-pays police, we have partially privatised education, with University fees and more recently, with Charter Schools. We get better service, when people have to pay for it – end of story.

    ACT’s policies are:

    “We’re striving for a progressive, vibrant New Zealand that encourages individual choice, responsibility and excellence. A nation with a strong economy where hard work is rewarded, not taxed away.

    We believe the current role of government is far too large and should be limited on a principled basis. Clearly defining the government’s function would achieve the outcomes New Zealanders desire – a fairer, more prosperous and dynamic society.

    Our policies are designed to create the right conditions for people to reach their full potential and build successful families, businesses and lives.”

    St John ambulance is a business and staff cannot hold patients to ransom by sitting around a negotiating table wanting more money, instead being out and about. St Johns management have every right to walk away from the bargaining table if their workers are not caring for people who are “in need of safe and immediate transport to a medical facility because of a medical emergency”.

  5. I’ve never understood why ambulance services in the 20thC …ooops 21st C need to be run as charities. It may have been appropriate in the days of Provincial governments, but I thought they’d been abolished years ago – along with the reasons for Pike River mine disasters and all that went with them. Similarly volunteer fire brigades.
    It won’t be long before we see the re-emergence of horse drawn tenders.

    I got better ambulance service in that 3rd World nation we refer to as India. Admittedly a shit, poorly equipped Maruti Suzuki with a couple of people hanging off the rear bumper bar, but more fektiv and fishint probably because their wasn’t a heirarchy of bullshit ticket clipper administrators directing those at the coal face.

    • Ambulances are free in Cuba, but as only a handful are available for the whole of Havana taxis are the ambulance of choice.

  6. Absolutely right. Thank you, Martyn. We need an indepth review and revamp by the people (not politicians) of every single “system” run by this and all other “I’m alright Jack” governments. Everything that the government touches smells of fraud and corruption. We need total change from the grass roots up.

  7. The issue that has not been settled is the reason for the T-shirt protest which has now resulted in the 10% penalty.

    The main issue is that shift workers are missing out on the 11 statutory holidays that all of the country’s Monday to Friday nine-to-fivers receive.

    The current labour regulations have anyone who is rostered so that they have a Monday off (my son works Weds. to Sunday) misses out on many of those statutory holidays.
    This situation has become worse since mondayisation of any that fall on the weekends.

    Some bosses are tight bastards about it. Others such as Bunnings Glenfield compensate them well so that they are not deprived by working a monday holiday.
    Business owners from other countries appear to have less respect for these public holidays, some of which are religious festivals and well established in NZ culture.

    National failed to make any allowance for the problem with just another piece of rushed legislation.

    Now as well as all retail workers missing out it looks as though our essential services are being shafted as well.

    It doesn’t help that MSM keep bleating on about the ambulance staff failing to wear uniform being the issue.

    This year the St John shift staff will miss 4 holidays. That’s nearly a week’s income. And St Johns are going to start pinching 10% off them for their protest. They can do that under National’s amended labour laws.

  8. St John’s motto “WE ARE THE FIRST TO CARE” is an absolute joke. The management certainly don’t care about their staff!

    Prior to retirement, my husband worked as a para medic for 35 years for St John in the Auckland region. During that time, he and other long serving senior staff members were shown no loyalty whatsoever by management.

    In many instances rural/out station staff not only were required to work alone as a single crewed ambulance, but also worked up to 94 hours per week, with no down time whatsoever until the shift changed. (Down time being no real rest period, through being on call over 24 hour periods throughout the shift).

    After some time, union intervention with the assistance of the then minister of transport Mark Gosche (Labour) becoming involved, eventually changed this situation, when it was discovered the working conditions were illegal.

    It’s interesting to see nothing much has changed over the years. St John Management is still as belligerent as ever!

    And another point, St John continues to advertise itself as a charity, when it is administered on the business corporate model! Management behaviour throughout this latest dispute, being evidence of this fact!

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