An industrial stoush over the provision of non-emergency ambulance services has seen some district paramedics down tools for three hours at the start of shifts in Shepparton for the past two days.

United Voice organiser Olga Bartasek said the protected industrial action had been granted by the Fair Work Commission.

Some non-emergency ambulance services were contracted out by Ambulance Victoria to private firm National Patient Transport Group.

The privately-contracted paramedics earn significantly less than their government paid counterparts, according to Ms Bartasek.

‘‘There’s been a problem for quite a while where members have been paid 25 to 30 per cent less than public sector,’’ she said.

Non-emergency ambulance workers are sometimes allocated 000 calls when the issue was not deemed significant, leading to confusion from the public and occasionally hostile reactions, Ms Bartasek said.

The industrial action was designed to cause minimum disruption to services, she said.

But the action had no impact according to National Patient Transport Group chief executive Jeff Wilson, who, while now living in Melbourne, grew up locally.

‘‘What we’ve done is put on extra crews and we had a crew on standby knowing the (Shepparton) crew would be out,’’ he said.

‘‘Our service to the community has not been compromised at this stage, with zero disruption.’’

The privately-contracted paramedics were well remunerated, Mr Wilson said.

‘‘Our employees are highly valued and are the highest remunerated (privately contracted) workers in the field,’’ he said.