Digging Deeper podcast excerpt | An update on union negotiations and Shepp’s new paramedics

He recently transitioned to the role after receiving an ‘ambulance community officer to graduate scholarship’ following his work as an ACO in Tatura for the past seven years.

He shared what he found rewarding about his role as a paramedic now and his experience beforehand as an ACO in Tatura.

Here are some excerpts of the conversation.

Nicola: What have you found rewarding about this career so far?

Pete: I think some of the rewarding things are obviously great patient outcomes when we can make a difference to someone, it really does mean a lot.

However, I’ve really found the rewarding aspect being the camaraderie amongst the paramedics and the crews. I think that’s something that’s really special and something I can contribute to going forward.

Nicola: Working in this career over the past seven years, has it helped you see paramedic work in a different light?

Pete: Certainly at times it gives you some perspective. I think we can often get hung up in our own lives, but when you get exposed to different patient cohorts and different patient environments, it certainly does give you some grounding in that perspective, which can be really humbling at times.

Nicola: Through the work you’ve done, are there some important things you’ve been able to walk away with from this job?

Pete: It’s really rewarding to be part of a team and contributing to a team and to know that your skills, regardless of level or knowledge, really are valued. So that’s really quite rewarding.

For me, I guess personally as well, this is a journey that’s taken close to or over seven years now of a lot of hard work.

So I think it still hasn’t quite sunk in when I look at these badges on my uniform that say paramedic, and I have to say yeah, I’m a graduate paramedic, and it hasn’t quite sunk in, but it’s a reflection like, ‘Wow, you know, this has been a journey, and it’s been a lot of hard work, but you’re here now, so let’s own it.’

• Paramedic and Ambulance Victoria organiser for the Victorian Ambulance Union Chloe Bell also chatted with Nicola about how negotiations for the 2024 Ambulance Victoria Enterprise Agreement were going. Here’s what she had to say.

Nicola: Can you tell me a little bit about what’s been happening with union talks between you guys and Ambulance Victoria and the state government so far?

Chloe: It’s been a huge 18 months or so for us at the Victorian Ambulance Union. We started engaging in discussions around enterprise negotiation in February 2023 and those talks started with Ambulance Victoria and the state government.

Our log of claims was driven by our membership, so we had about 80 claims for our membership at that point in time, and we took some of those claims and condensed them, but we’re still going with our enterprise negotiations.

At the moment, we’re meeting twice a week to have quite lengthy discussions and we have a facilitator who is a previous commissioner from the Fair Work Commission who is overseeing the discussions, and she keeps us on track, and she picks out common themes between the parties and helps us to reach an agreement.

Then hopefully we can reach agreement on all of these things, and we then have our new enterprise agreement.

Nicola: What are some of things you guys are advocating for change with Ambulance Victoria?

Chloe: So this campaign is really about improving conditions for our paramedic members and the overall workforce.

The campaign from a number of years ago, the code red campaign, was focused around improving wages and conditions, but mainly wages.

This time around, wages are a component of our negotiations, they always are for all enterprise negotiations.

However, the main focus is on workplace stressors and things that can improve the workflow that we’re seeing.

So things like resourcing, we’re looking at end-of-shift management clauses around the right to disconnect outside of working hours, requesting flexible working arrangements, which is a really big issue at the moment for a large portion of the workforce, and looking at access to single days off. Generally most paramedics, are working a four on four off roster, and it’s very difficult to change a shift if you need to go to a wedding or a family event or anything like that.

If you want to hear more of what Pete and Chloe had to say, listen to the full podcast here.