VICTORIA – When former deputy finance minister Chris Trumpy was named last week to head an inquiry into the ugly mess of the paramedics’ strike, the union’s response was predictable.

The inquiry’s a sham, Trumpy’s a long-time B.C. Liberal appointee and we’re having nothing to do with it, CUPE Local 873’s spokesman told CKNW radio.

Memo to Local 873: Trumpy’s first deputy minister appointment was in 1998, under the NDP government. Yes, he was kept on by the B.C. Liberals and served with distinction in some of the most difficult roles in the public service. His professional independence is unquestioned.

Since this eight-month outrage has been largely ignored by the city media, here’s a refresher. With its contract expiring last spring in the midst of an economic collapse, the union brain trust demanded an outrageous 29-per-cent pay increase. It spurned a signing bonus that was accepted by every other public service union, and its repeated violations of essential services provisions have occasioned two B.C. Supreme Court orders to maintain public safety.

The months of disruptions show a clear strategy, not only to park the taxpayers’ ambulances and stage noisy anti-government rallies at events such as the June opening of the new Golden Ears bridge, but also to maximize overtime pay.

The health ministry produced a handy graph showing the strategy at work. The first big, dangerous walkout was May 12, coincidentally election day, where Lower Mainland paramedics abandoned their duties in large numbers to yell and wave signs urging people to throw the B.C. Liberals out.

Did you have chest pain that day? Hope you got yourself to the hospital, maybe via that new bridge.

Good days to have chest pain this year would have been Victoria Day, Canada Day, B.C. Day and Labour Day. Most paramedics reported for work those days, coincidentally collecting premium pay.

The last big illegal action was a “sick-out” on Nov. 13, a few days after the government imposed a contract extension until next April to protect the public. Dozens of Lower Mainland ambulances were parked in what one paramedic supporter suggested to me was a sudden outbreak of H1N1 flu that mysteriously targeted only “D platoon” on a Friday afternoon. Yeah, right.

I should clarify that these actions took place mainly in urban areas that are blessed with unionized paramedics. Elsewhere, volunteers are paid $2 an hour to carry a pager. Some have a second pager because they’re volunteer firefighters too. They carry that one for free, apparently clinging to some archaic rural tradition about caring for your neighbours.

What’s the union fighting for, besides a ridiculous raise for urban paramedics already paid in line with the rest of Canada? It is fiercely protective of contract language dictating how shift vacancies are filled.

First right of refusal goes to a small group of “in post” part-timers, most of whom are retired full-timers. They often work the minimum and refuse extra shifts. After that, shifts must be offered to full-timers at overtime rates. Only after they refuse can work be offered to the many low-seniority part-timers who actually want it.

The union has also systematically disrupted paramedic training, refusing practicums and causing the Justice Institute of B.C. to turn away hundreds of students. Those with seniority have a death-grip on the work, even when they don't want it.

If you had trouble getting an ambulance during all this, I’d like to hear from you. Let’s make sure the industrial inquiry commission is reminded of what the real costs of this kind of nonsense can be.

Tom Fletcher is legislative reporter and columnist for Black Press and BCLocalnews.com.

tfletcher@blackpress.ca