Interesting development

supermedic

The PNA, and therefore NASRA and IFESA, it would seem, have accepted the Croke Park deal.....Check out Labour Court Recommendation 19988 on the Labour court website. It seems that the PNA have agreed to be bound by the terms of the PSA. Big change there.

HSE SOUTH (ST SENANS HOSPITAL) AND PNA, SERVICES INDUSTRIAL PROFESSIONAL TECHNICAL UNION, IRISH MUNICIPAL, PUBLIC AND CIVIL TRADE UNION


"The Court notes that all parties agreed that the matter was before the

Court under the terms of the Public Service Agreement 2010 – 2014. All

parties advised the Court that, in accordance with the terms of that

agreement, they agreed to be bound by the Court’s Recommendation."


Little white lies are also being told... 2 different members of organisations connected to the ambulance service were contacted by the "leader" of the new union and told that the other one had signed up to NASRA. The 2 guys contacted each other and both had absolutely not signed up for the new association. This would appear not to be the first time this happened recently.

Eyes open people..

Tango Alpha 51

Supermedic,
From looking at some of your recent posts re the two new unions you seem to be dead set against them can I ask why?

supermedic

Buzzman, Not against the idea of a new association, but strongly reject the manner in which certain individuals who are leading the new association are going about there business. This new group is born out of anger and frustration, which I can absolutely agree with. What I find objectionable is the vilification of the small group of individuals, all operational ambulance staff, who have given thousands of hours of their own time to progress the service over the years.

The same core group of people delivered the benchmarking awards, the grading review, the AP pay award, the introduction of new entrants in the service and every other benefit that we all enjoy in the service today. The SIPTU reps are not responsible for the state of the economy or the abyss that we are staring into.

The sort of childish, immature language and the playground tactics used by some in the new association do not do justice to a staff organisation. The general comradeship between unions SIPTU, UNITE and IMPACT, is sadly lacking with this group.

If you have looked at my past points, you will see that I firmly believe that the union, under what ever name, is a strong group of individuals, who stand together and deliver at a station level. They send some one appropriate and strong to represent at a national level. If this didn't happen before, why did it not happen ??

Tango Alpha 51

Supermedic,
Thank you for clarifying that for me. Your right in that no one person can be blamed for the economy but I would like to point out a few things too if I may. I take it your SIPTU & I see that your NAS AP as well. Then you will have heard of IARC. Maybe the area your in has been served well by SIPTU/IARC but not in my area. We have been led to believe that IARC elections were supposed to be held every 3 years. In nearly 20 years this has not happened in our area. We had the same rep for over 15 years & if I was to be brutally honest, information from said rep was piss poor at best. Likewise we've had to deal with a succession of local branch secretaries who maybe through no fault of theirs were not clued up to what we as a service did / had progressed to so when dealing with management were completely out of their depth. As you state a union can only be as strong as it's members but ffs those who allegedly represent us should know what they are fighting for or what we are about & lets not get into the AP pay award as this seems to be a major bone of contention across the country. Ye upskilled & got compensated for it whereas the ordinary paramedic who has done upskilling has got no recompense for same. If you talk to anyone in the Association of Ambulance Personnel, they also maintain that they did the majority of the groundwork in relation to some of the stuff that your talking about. It seems that no matter who you talk too, you end up getting a different story

supermedic

Buzzman, Sorry to here that you were less than happy with your representation for the last 15 odd years, but if I'm being honest, who is to blame for that. If there were problems with the individual and if information was not coming down the line, the time to deal with that was when it happened. If you have any AP's working in your station, ask them about the communications they get from IARC on a regular basis.

The branch officials, well some areas had ****e ones and some areas had really good ones that were clued in and pro ambulance. The new structure that SIPTU finally put in place does away with that, now 5 full time dedicated officials will look after ambulance issues for the entire country and we are all in one sector, on our own, within the health division.

I'm faware of the work of IARC and what I can tell you is that the exact same people who did all the work on the benchmarking awards and the grading process did the work on the AP award, which by the way delivered a substantial pay increase for paramedics who completed the AP course. No AP got paid for upskilling, they got paid for retraining. There is a world of difference in attending the NASC for a few days and devoting a year of your life to a new training programme, which 100+ of our colleagues did with no additional pay until 2009. The AP course is available equally to every paramedic in the country through the selection process.

Finally, While I know some good people in the AAP and I know that the former chairman was instrumental in getting government sign off in 2004 for the course, they are a small organisation with no real voice. They never participated in the benchmarking hearings, the grading review or the AP award process , but did advocate for change.