I’m a bit stumped by this one. I struggle to think of a group of people more universally like and respected than Paramedics. They save your life. Pretty cool right?

In their previous bargaining round, as I understand it, Ambos and Paramedics got a pretty raw deal. They are getting stiffed again.

You see the ambulance service relies on a hell of a lot of good will from it’s staff. They work excessive hours, because they actually care about their job and realise that response times will be dramatically affected if they don’t take on the overtime and additional shifts. Slower response times means more people die – that’s some serious emotional blackmail.

As a result, they work back-to-back shifts, suffer severe fatigue and put people’s lives at risk when they mis-medicate due to exhaustion.

The solution? 10 hr breaks. So that they have time to sleep between finishing a shift and starting the next one. Even in the most draconian workplace I have had the misfortune of being employed at, we had 10 hour breaks. You couldn’t sign on until 10 hours after you’d signed off. Moreover, surely this means people work less which means it will cost you less. So why can’t we write 10 hours breaks in the the agreement that governs the wages and conditions of Paramedics?

To make matters worse, they aren’t allowed to take industrial action. That’s right, the so called ‘Fair Work Australia’ have rejected their industrial action appeal on the grounds that it might endanger lives. I’d have thought that they are fighting to ensure that they don’t endanger lives because of horrendous work conditions. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

There campaign website is: http://responsetime.org.au/.

So for failing to meet the most basic demands of people that will probably save your life at some stage, you Minister for Health Daniel Andrews are: Jerk of the Week!