Teamsters Local 855 represents the majority of PCPs and EMRs in the province’s rural and community ambulance operations. They deliver emergency health-care services to the residents of our province every day. These employees pride themselves on their commitment to the job and on their level of professionalism.
A Grant Thornton report in June, 2018 by the current government, audited the staffing and payroll practises if ambulance operators in our province. It identified non-compliance with signed service agreements between ambulance operators (the business owners) and the Department of Health and Community Services.
These areas of non-compliance significantly and negatively impact our members and their work environment. They are promoting frustration at the lack of enforcement of such agreements. Traditionally, governments have provided funding under service agreements with ambulance operators, with very little oversight in ensuring compliance to the agreements and worker’s benefit provisions are met.
When Teamsters Local 855 expresses concerns on behalf of our members to government, we are told to deal with the service operators. But we have no authority to hold operators to that agreement. That is government’s role or lack thereof.
We continuously hear from our members about issues related to staffing shortages, employee retention, lack of training opportunities, 24-hour schedules, workplace injuries, PTSD claims, overtime, and established hourly wage rates. The lack of monitoring of service agreements by government is linked directly to these concerns. And the failure to demand compliance demonstrates the need for regular oversight to ensure the agreed-to benefits and work standards are met for our members.
Government tells us negotiations are ongoing between Health and Community Services, Treasury Board officials, and ambulance operators on a new two-year agreement to take effect April 1, 2020. But the employees are not represented at the table, their union is not at the table ensuring that the new collective agreement resolves the workplace concerns of workers and addresses accountability deficiencies identified in the Grant Thornton Report.
Informed change is needed and Teamsters Local 855, on behalf of our members, can play a key role in making those changes and must to be heard if improvements are to be made to the system.
Teamsters Local 855 looks forward to a more efficient, effective, sustainable and quality emergency medical services system for the province. In this new patient-centred model there needs to be a focus on care delivery to build an operational model. Such a model must support integration and best-practise standards. The model must monitor performance and assign accountability. There needs to be enhanced governance and system structure. There must be improved technology. There must be information management. And last, but not least, the new system must meet public expectations for a quality experience. Nothing else is acceptable.
On behalf of the many and EMRs in rural NL who we have the honor to represent, Teamsters Local 855 calls on the Liberal Government of Premier Dwight Ball to engage with us in good faith. Together we can set up a collective agreement that positively affects service delivery to so many of our residents in small and rural communities across our province where emergency service can often mean the difference between life and death.
On behalf of the emergency medical response workers across this Province, we challenge each of the 40 members of the House of Assembly to talk to the PCPs and EMRs in her or his district. Make personal contact with them and discuss their workplace issues, the basic rights that are important to them, that they are being denied. And talk to the people who need emergency service in their area.
With this knowledge, each elected representative can bring those concerns to the House of Assembly. They can advocate to Minister Haggie and Minister Osborne to hear the employees, to listen to our members and to engage so they can be part of the solution, an improved emergency medical response services for all.
For the sake of the health of the emergency medical response workers across the province, we call on the Government to engage with them and make Teamsters Local 855 a part of the negotiations for the new agreement with ambulance operators. Then, with the knowledge we have gained from our members, we can help ensure all employees’ concerns are addressed in a system that Government has already identified as non-compliant.
Yours Sincerely,
Hubert Dawe,
Teamsters Local 855 Business Agent , Health Care