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Speaker 1: More than two and a half thousand ambulance offices are

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Speaker 1: going on strike this month. It comes after failed pay

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Speaker 1: negotiations with Saint John, who says it has no money

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Speaker 1: and is relying on Health New Zealand to bring something

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Speaker 1: to the table. First Union and Ambulance Association members voted

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Speaker 1: to stagger four hour withdrawals of labor over two days.

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Speaker 1: Famer Can is with First Union, She's with us this morning, Fae.

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Speaker 2: How will this work? This withdrawal of labor.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so our members basically will show up to work late,

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Speaker 3: four hours late on the twenty s and on the

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Speaker 3: twenty fourth of August.

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Speaker 2: And how will that affect the service?

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Speaker 3: So there will be less ambulances available, there'll be less

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Speaker 3: call handlers to answer calls, less the statues. Ultimately, we

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Speaker 3: do go on to an agreement with Saint John to

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Speaker 3: provide minimum staffing numbers, so it'll bear reduced service, but

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Speaker 3: there'll still be ambulances available there for people.

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Speaker 1: When you it's how many any of your members are

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Speaker 1: going to be turning up late?

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Speaker 3: So we represent a thousand members and astoundingly, ninety five

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Speaker 3: percent of them were keen to take this action. It's

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Speaker 3: unfortunate that we've got to the stage. Obviously it's not

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Speaker 3: the ideal situation, and we took a lot of different

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Speaker 3: strike actions before this, but ultimately the government has chosen

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Speaker 3: to ignore their voices. So this is then making sure

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Speaker 3: that they're heard.

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Speaker 1: So that's a thousand of your members who won't be

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Speaker 1: coming for the first four hours of the shift. Do

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Speaker 1: you know how many will with the life preserving agreement

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Speaker 1: You're going to nut out with Saint John, how many

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Speaker 1: will be on board?

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Speaker 3: I know we're not into that detail.

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Speaker 2: At the moment. Is it going to will people die?

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Speaker 3: We're hoping that people won't die, but they will certainly

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Speaker 3: be delayed. Ultimately, what we would like is the government

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Speaker 3: to step in to give more funding because the issue

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Speaker 3: that we're seeing is if our members don't take action now,

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Speaker 3: is ultimately the ambulance of us is going to crumble.

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Speaker 3: So although it's some of this is to do with

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Speaker 3: pay that, ultimately it is to do with them going

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Speaker 3: to work each day in a system that's not working

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Speaker 3: and then seeing the risks if it continues to work

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Speaker 3: in that way.

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Speaker 1: Faye, one of our listeners is just texting to say

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Speaker 1: don't call the ambulance call an uber, they'll get you

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Speaker 1: to hospital quicker.

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Speaker 2: Ye. Are people going to have to do stuff like that?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, But the sad reality is that that's say on

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Speaker 3: a day to day basis at the moment, that's what

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Speaker 3: we're hearing that people are like, our members are going

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Speaker 3: to people who have been waiting for hours and they

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Speaker 3: shouldn't have been waiting for hours.

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Speaker 1: Faith, Thanks for your time this morning, Famercan, the National

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Speaker 1: Ambulance coordinator for First Union. For more from News Talks

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Speaker 1: B listen live on air or online, and

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Speaker 3: podcasts on iHeartRadio