The Labor Department has opened an investigation into practices denounced by five Lyon ambulance companies. According to them, race bonuses are notably offered to drivers, pushing them to always increase the pace.
“We don’t count our hours, we are all exhausted, we sacrifice ourselves and this affair will further smear the profession”, angrily says the boss of an ambulance company who says she respects the rules and can’t find any more drivers. In question: the shortage of labor in this sector faced with drivers who are not interested or too greedy in terms of salary. So, to attract them, some companies go out of their way and offer race bonuses or a percentage of daily turnover.
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These practices, revealed by five entrepreneurs in the sector based in the Rhône, prompted the Direccte (regional directorate for the economy, employment, labor and solidarity) of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes to launch an investigation. In a letter sent to the Regional Health Agency, these companies talk about “unfair competition”.
Two patients in the same ambulance
Thanks to these bonuses, the paramedics see their income increase by 15 to 20%. But this forces them to step up the pace and often exceed the 12 legal daily hours. A deterioration in working conditions as witnessed by Jean-Pierre*, who has worked for 20 years: “Today, performance takes precedence over quality. The faster we go, the better we are paid“, he denounces.
“You can save working time on the road by going very, very fast, dropping patients off very quickly without worrying about their condition, picking up two patients in the same ambulance.”
Jean-Pierre, paramedic in Lyon for 20 yearsat franceinfo
“A patient who should be lying down, if he walks a little, we will take him and put him sitting, adds the paramedic. These are attendance bonuses, profitability bonuses, slightly disguised meal bonuses. And, today, serious companies which respect the Highway Code, they do not find employees“, specifies Jean-Pierre.
“Complicated” checks to be carried out
Work inspector, Julie Nardin also speaks of competition “fierce” which has been accentuated with the private sector which has recovered part of the emergency transport. “These bonuses, if they exist, well they are prohibited. And it is mandatory for labor inspectors to first check the existence of working time accounts, and then to look at what there are on the payslips. If there is neither one nor the other, inevitably, it is more complicated. This means that these are payments by hand, by hand.. And there, these are controls which are inevitably more difficult since it is necessary to go to control the illegal work, even to try to establish by stopping the ambulance men on the road, if by chance, there is this type of remuneration which is given from hand to hand”.
In Lyon, no one has forgotten the recent death of two teenagers on scooters and a biker hit by ambulances.
*Name has been changed