C2002/1672, Transcript of Proceedings [2002] AIRCTrans 1338 (22 April 2002)

AUSCRIPT PTY LTD
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TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

O/N VT03376
AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRIAL

RELATIONS COMMISSION

COMMISSIONER GAY

C2002/1672

RURAL AMBULANCE VICTORIA

and

AUSTRALIAN LIQUOR, HOSPITALITY AND
MISCELLANEOUS WORKERS UNION - VICTORIAN BRANCH

Notification pursuant to section 99 of the Act
of a dispute re Union claim for additional
staffing levels

MELBOURNE

10.15 AM, FRIDAY, 5 APRIL 2002

PN1

MS B. FORBATH: I appear on behalf of the Australian Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union, together with MR ROB MORRIS.

PN2

MS K. MINOGUE: I appear on behalf of Rural Ambulance Victoria, together with STEVEN GOUGH from Rural Ambulance Victoria as well.

PN3

THE COMMISSIONER: Yes, thank you Ms Minogue.

PN4

MR T. LEE: I appear for the Department of Human Services, also appearing with me is MR T. SUTHERLAND.

PN5

THE COMMISSIONER: Mr Sutherland is it?

PN6

MR LEE: Yes.

PN7

THE COMMISSIONER: Thank you.

PN8

MR LEE: I think perhaps I am seeking - - -

PN9

THE COMMISSIONER: Just a moment Mr Lee. Yes, Mr Lee?

PN10

MR LEE: I am not sure of the history of this particular section 99, but I suspect that I am seeking leave to intervene.

PN11

THE COMMISSIONER: Yes, I was going to clarify your status. I think it is has to be an application for leave. Is any point taken against that?

PN12

MS FORBATH: There's no objection.

PN13

THE COMMISSIONER: Yes, leave is granted Mr Lee. I do want to make it clear procedurally where we are. My associate has called on C number 2002/1672, which is the section 99 notification lodged by the Rural Service and what I propose to do is this is not the compulsory conference, I will make it clear when the compulsory conference commences. What I am going to do now is give the parties the opportunity, it seems to me to be useful, to put a position on the record as they might be advised, and then I would be very likely to convene the compulsory conference. And Ms Minogue, you are the notifier, I will give you the opportunity to go first, if you wish to put something on the record?

PN14

MS MINOGUE: Yes, Commissioner. Just prior to proceedings this morning I have provided the AAV with a settlement of dispute, to deal with the section 99 notification, that was lodged by Royal Ambulance Victoria the day before Good Friday and that document actually goes to the issue at hand about resolving a number of outstanding issues, in particular the appointment of additional paramedics to the operation centres within range. So in terms of that Commissioner, that's rather than actually going into detail at this stage, I would rather we leave it at that if that's okay. So rather than actually detail the entire document, or would you have me do that at this point in time?

PN15

THE COMMISSIONER: Well I understand what you've said Ms Minogue, it's really for the parties to put they wish to. Ms Forbath what do you want to say?

PN16

MS FORBATH: Commissioner, I think it's important for the record that background to this matter be recorded for the record. This was done in conference with Commissioner Holmes on Good Friday, but unfortunately, as the case may be, not on the record. I think from the union's point of view it is very important that we establish that this is a matter of serious public safety. It is a matter that has been a running sore in the ambulance industry for some several years.

PN17

There have been a number of disputes that have come to this Commission and have been before various Commissioners of this Commission and various interim settlements have been created to resolve various disputes that have arisen along the way, all to do with primarily the staffing and the duties of communications officers in the five rural ambulance Victoria communication centres. And the issues that have arisen that I particularly wish to pinpoint, without going into an enormous amount of detail, are that in the year 2000 we had a cease work notice put on the Morwell communications centre in the La Trobe valley and Work Cover were involved in that matter.

PN18

They upheld the cease work and out of that matter, which was then referred to the Commission, the Ambulance Service took that matter to the Commission two Ambulance Paramedic communications officers were then subsequently put on at the Morwell Communications Centre, in order to address Work Cover's concerns about fatigue and about the ability of communications officers, particularly at night, to be relieved for rests and meals and toilet breaks and so on.

PN19

There was a recent further notification, pin notice notification, to Work Cover at the Ballarat Centre, which was also upheld, which was to do with the issue of fatigue related to staffing and other matters. Work Cover had given Rural Ambulance Victoria until August to resolve that issue. So time is bearing down upon us, but there is another matter going further back and we are talking here round about 1999 where, due to the staff levels at the Ballarat Communication Centre, there was a delay in a call being received from the public.

PN20

There was, perhaps not directly, but certainly as a contributing factor, the patient in that particular situation died. There was a Coroner's inquiry, it's known as the Funslowe case and the Coroner out of that case, recommended that there be a very serious look at the staffing levels of Ballarat Communication Centre. Out of that and out of subsequent disputes around Communications Centres, the Rural Ambulance Victoria brought in consultants from Adelaide to have a look at the Ballarat Communication Centre and that examination was extended to all communications centres.

PN21

Now, that study was called the: Operational Centre Staffing Fatigue and Training Review Report and that review was conducted by those experts over quite a period of time. The final report was handed down in May of 2001. After considerable pressure from the union to do something with the report, to actually begin to implement some recommendations, an Implementation Committee was set up in October of last year, of which I am a member and as are representatives of communications officers and civilian call takers are also represented on that Implementation Committee, together with management and we have been working through those recommendations and have been engaged quite constructively in the work of implementation of that report.

PN22

However, there is clearly some very big issues that that report raises, which will take some time to work through. The union representatives on that Implementation Committee, a couple of weeks ago, recommended that there be an interim recommendation implemented and that is that there be two ambulance paramedic qualified communications officers established in all operational communications centres. Now, that is what the report recommends. The employers support that on the Implementation Committee and certainly all of the union representatives support that.

PN23

The dispute between the parties of course was well from the employers point of view and I am sure they will speak for themselves on this, but they wanted to wait until we had a list of recommendations on everything we report before that particular matter was implemented. It became clear that the issue of the call taker hours was, from our perspective at least, to be traded off, if you like, against the ambulance paramedic communication officers. Now, the situation is this, there are five operation centres, three of them have two qualified ambulance paramedics communications officers on duty at all times.

PN24

So we're really just talking about Geelong and Ballarat and at both of those centres they have two ambulance communications officers on some of the time, but not all of the time. So we are not looking at a very large number of additional positions. The number of additional positions will depend on the type of roster that one adopts in those centres. The report recommends that in Geelong and Ballarat that there is not a necessity to have call takers working overnight and what that means, in effect, is that a number of people will be made redundant in Ballarat and Geelong.

PN25

Now, the Implementation Committee has been discussing this. From the union's point of view, of course, we are not in a position and we will not support redundancies. We are quite prepared to talk about how those call taker hours may be dealt with in terms of other duties, redeployments and so forth. We are currently looking at a whole new job description for call takers. Committee has finalised a new job description for call takers which gives them quite a lot of additional duties and that is to go to the call takers for their consideration shortly.

PN26

But from the union's perspective Commissioner, we have been in this position of to put it bluntly, asked to trade off the jobs of young, female call takers in Geelong and Ballarat in exchange for additional jobs, or additional positions, for qualified ambulance paramedics in those two centres and that's not a position that is an easy one for us to deal with. We understand that over time the numbers of call takers may be reduced and that will happen, we're quite sure by attrition.

PN27

There are other strategies that we are currently looking at to see how we can deal with what is regarded as, in the report, as perhaps surplus hours at those two centres. It's not a problem anywhere else, because some of the centres do not have call takers and some of them only have them for a shorter number of hours than will be necessary. So there will be some job creation for call takers in other parts of the State, but in the regional centres of Geelong and Ballarat, there certainly is the prospect of redundancies and that is, of course, a very serious matter from our point of view, as I am sure your Honour would appreciate.

PN28

The level of frustration about the staffing levels in the communications centres, is very great and the frustration goes further in that our members are very much aware that in the background to all of these local concerns about staffing and fatigue and safety, is a situation where the Government is considering a whole restructure of ambulance and indeed emergency services communications State-wide. And there is a study, a report called the SIPSATS Report, I am sure Mr Morris will be able to tell you what those letters stand for, I can't remember right at the moment. But it is called the SIPSATS Report. It sets out a blueprint, if you like, for future emergency communications in the State of Victoria.

PN29

We have been trying, for some years, to get a copy of this report and we have been denied a copy of that report and clearly what is in that report is going to affect the job security of many of our members, not just call takers, but ambulance paramedics, who work in regional centres across the whole of rural Victoria and of course it is very difficult to attract people into jobs in ambulance communications, with rumours flying around that possibly 12 months, two years, or three years down the track these jobs will be made redundant and it creates an environment of uncertainty and we have written to the Premier, Mr Bracks, we have written to the Health Minister Mr Thwaites, we have written to the Emergency Services Minister, Andre Haymyer and we have been met by silence.

PN30

Now, it is very difficult for us to quell frustration and anxiety, which are contributing factors to lots of industrial action that happens in our industry, when we do not know what it is the Government has in store for ambulance communications in this State. We have been totally locked out of any consultation or knowledge of what is happening in that area and it is a very dangerous situation. The Communications Centre is the hub of the Ambulance Service. If there is no Communications Centre, there is no Ambulance Service, because that is where the calls are taken from the public and that's where the ambulances are despatched to patients.

PN31

So, how we deal with that is very important and given what has occurred in the Metropolitan Ambulance Service, subsequent Royal Commission and so forth that has taken place and resulting from that that the Government is going to take back in house the Metropolitan Emergency Service communications, it should indeed be a very serious matter for all Government departments about what happens in ambulance communications and it's one of the reasons, Commissioner, why we have desired to have here today, representatives from Government.

PN32

Because we want to say in no uncertain terms that our members and this union are very, very concerned indeed about what is happening in rural communications, both in terms of the immediate concerns for public safety, from our members. If our members are falling asleep on the job because they are so fatigued and there isn't a second communications dispatcher present to allow them to have a nap in the middle of the night, then the whole service is at risk and the public is at risk and there's a public safety concern here that every Government department should be concerned about.

PN33

Now, what we have done, out of that frustration, was an industrial campaign was commenced on Thursday of last week and as a consequence of that there were certain applications to the Commission and a hearing here on Easter Friday, Good Friday and out of that exercise a compulsory conference was deemed to be the way forward in terms of trying to find a solution to where we are at today. The industrial action has been lifted, it was lifted on Friday and there is no current industrial action in place. There are a number of points of in principle agreement that were reached between the party on Easter Friday, including an in principle agreement that all the operational communications centres will be staffed by two qualified ambulance paramedic communications officers, rostered on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

PN34

So there is an in principle agreement on that point and the parties are not in dispute about that. How that is funded is a matter between the Rural Ambulance Victoria and the Government to sort out, but from the union's point of view, Commissioner, we find it very frustrating indeed to be told by one party that they agree with us, they can't do anything about it because there's a funding problem and then when we discuss the matter with the Government, the Government says: Look, the Rural Ambulance Victoria is being funded to run an ambulance service, it's their issue to deal with.

PN35

And there's quite a bit of, to use a colloquial term, "duck shoving" goes on between the employer and the Government on this issue and we won't put up with that, it only leads to frustration and it only leads to industrial action. So we're here today in genuine effort to try and see if we can bed this whole issue down. We had a meeting on Wednesday with Mr Trevor Sutherland from the Department of Human Services, to discuss the whole matter and we had a meeting yesterday with the Rural Ambulance Victoria and they put to us a proposed settlement which we responded to verbally and detailed those areas with which we had some concern.

PN36

We then later in the day produced another settlement document which was e-mailed to Rural Ambulance Victoria around about 6 o'clock last night and I understand that what was proposed in that is still not acceptable to Rural Ambulance Victoria and they have just, a moment ago, given us another document, which we really haven't had a chance yet to study in any detail Commissioner. But that is a bit of a thumb-nail sketch in terms of the general background. There's a lot of points of detail that could probably be filled in but for your information Commissioner, that is in general terms the background to this matter as it stands today.

PN37

THE COMMISSIONER: Yes, well thank you, I appreciate that Ms Forbath and the way that you have put that, which in some respects, might be thought to have been a non-partisan account, or a rendition of the narrative, that's not to say, of course, that Ms Minogue wouldn't wish to make some changes, but I am going to take it that as a narrative, some aspects of that aren't sought to be disagreed with. Ms Minogue can I say that I really do appreciate that there would be quite some changes you would make to that and it's not really, I suspect, necessary for today's purposes, for you to seek to set the record straight as you might otherwise do, but certainly I reserve your rights in any event. All right.

PN38

MS FORBATH: Thank you Commissioner.

PN39

THE COMMISSIONER: So, having heard that information, I am going to go off the record shortly and perhaps briefly for some housekeeping and then we will come back on the record. So we will go off the record now for a moment.

OFF THE RECORD [10.42am]

RESUMED [10.43am]

PN40

THE COMMISSIONER: Yes, we are going to adjourn now, we will come back on shortly before 11 and we will not be coming back on the record, that's when I will convene the compulsory conference. We will now adjourn.

SHORT ADJOURNMENT [10.44am]

RESUMED [6.20pm]

PN41

THE COMMISSIONER: Well the parties have had pretty lengthy conferences throughout the day and I understand there's a position which can be put on the record, who is going to do that?

PN42

MS MINOGUE: Commissioner, if I may?

PN43

THE COMMISSIONER: Yes Ms Minogue.

PN44

MS MINOGUE: Just following the efforts of the parties throughout the course of the day, the parties have reached an agreement as a settlement for the section 99 notification of industrial dispute that was lodged by Royal Ambulance Victoria, last week and subject, obviously, to the confirmation by Ms Forbath, it would be the position of the Royal Ambulance Victoria that having reached this agreement that would resolve the application that is currently before you in relation to section 99, on the basis of that, that would also then result in, or negate the - sorry, not negate, require them to rule on the 127 application as well. So Commissioner, if I may, I would like to actually read out the agreement that has been reached between the parties. The settlement of dispute reads as follows:

PN45

The parties are committed to implementing the recommendations of the Operations Centre Staffing Level Assessment Report.

PN46

PN47

Paragraph (2): The parties agree that all RAV Op Cens will be staffed by at least two qualified ambulance paramedic communications officers, rostered on duty 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

PN48

PN49

Paragraph (3): Appointment of additional Ambulance Paramedic Communications Officers will occur as follows:

PN50

PN51

(a) Finalisation Agreement to new job descriptions within 4 weeks;

PN52

PN53

(b) Advertising for 7 additional positions in order to meet the staffing requirements in clause (2) above, to be undertaken within 4 weeks from the date of signing of this settlement;

PN54

PN55

(c) The advertisement of vacancies to be open for a period of 4 weeks;

PN56

PN57

(d) Interview an appointee to all vacant permanent positions to occur within 3 months from the date and signing of this settlement. Successful applicants will commence as soon as practicable;

PN58

PN59

(e) A Communications Officer training program to be provided to any appointees not already trained; and

PN60

PN61

(f) Provision of clinical training in clinical skills, maintenance opportunities, to be made available to all Communications Officers;

PN62

PN63

Paragraph (4): The parties agree that during the period of advertising interview and appointment to permanent positions, RAV will call for expressions of interest from Paramedics to rotate through the Communications Officer positions at Geelong and Ballarat, as an interim measure to provide for two Communication Officer staffing at those Obs Cens having regard to the need to balance on road resources with the Obs Cen interim arrangements.

PN64

PN65

Paragraph (5):

PN66

(a) The parties agree to jointly review all the elements contributing to fatigue at RAV Obs Cens as detailed in the OSLA Report. This will include a review of Obs Cen rosters with a view to developing safer rosters which will be analysed using their fatigue minimisation tool, such as Fatigue Index, or FAID.

PN67

(b) This review will occur over the next 6 months and will involve consultation and involvement of employees. The findings of this review will be promoted to employees by both parties.

PN68

(c) The parties agree that the following measures assisted with minimisation of fatigue, increased staffing levels in accordance with this settlement, ensuring that the provision of meal breaks in accordance with the RAV Certified Agreement 2001 and clarifying that rest and recline periods allow for power naps during periods of low activity.

PN69

(d) The parties agree that FAID will be utilised to analyse the impact of the above measures.

PN70

Paragraph (6): RAV agrees to pursue the establishment of an accredited VET sector training program for all Obs Cen employees within the next 6 to 12 months. In the interim existing training programs will be utilised for new and existing staff until the accredited course is available.

PN71

Paragraph (7): Within the next 6 months, RAV will introduce an on-roster supervisory function, or role, at Ballarat, Morwell, Wangaratta and Geelong Obs Cens, within the succeeding 6 months a permanent super nummary position will be established at the Geelong Obs Cen and subject to confirmation of the recommendation of the OSLA Report, also at Wangaratta. Current arrangements will continue at Bendigo Obs Cen.

PN72

Paragraph (8): It is agreed that the parties will meet over the ensuing 2 month period to determine how the recommendations pertaining to call takers are to be implemented. As an interim measure, RAV will engage a call taker at the Morwell Obs Cen, for an 8-hour day shift, Monday to Friday.

PN73

That's the agreement in total, thank you Commissioner. If the Commission pleases.

PN74

THE COMMISSIONER: Yes, thanks Ms Minogue. Yes Ms Forbath?

PN75

MS FORBATH: Yes, Commissioner, the union is in agreement with those terms of settlement and they have been developed jointly with the parties and this settlement will go to our State council next week as well, given that this is a State-wide matter covering the whole of the Rural Ambulance Victoria, so they will be looking at that and hopefully, we don't see any reason why they wouldn't, but hopefully endorsing that as a way forward.

PN76

THE COMMISSIONER: Yes, thanks Ms Forbath and I think it is important today, to indicate that the parties have very much taken hold of these issues and in doing so I want to acknowledge that it is pleasing to see that. I do want to acknowledge the efforts made by the parties and by Commissioner Holmes, over the Easter period to come to grips with this problem. I understand what Ms Minogue has said about the applications, there being no further work for the Commission, I will adjourn sine die and thank you.

ADJOURNED INDEFINITELY [6.26pm]