Wholetime Retained Policy

[Boona]

Hi Everyone,

My Brigade has just implimented a W/T Retained policy that states a W/T employee has to do a minimum of 90 hours cover a week ie 75% cover, this is the minimum allowed under Grey book. It requires the individual to opt out of the Work Time Derective and sign a secondary contract of employment.
     FBU policy as agreed at conference 2005 (I think), states W/T members can do a maximum of 78 hours a week retained cover and here lies the problem. Management and my local FBU could have negotiated a local agreement but didn't, leaving Firefighters in the unenviable position of either serving their local community and going against FBU policy or towing the union line and having a policy that nobody can work!
    My question is " Is anybody working a W/T Retained policy that falls outside the FBU's" I really want to do the retained duty, yes I know its a big commitment, but I don't have any responsibities ie children, or a life (just joking), but I do not want to be the only wholetime Firefighter in the country going against the union.

  I look forward to your replies

[fireftrm]

There is no way a WDS employee could provide nayhting nerar 75% cover here. We insist on 8 hours prior to starting duty (the FBU say that 9 hours before and after should be applied - but this is not challenged here by the local branch and they are not the employer anyway). So in any 8 dyas (and the WDS work an 8 day roat so it is the only way to work this out) they can be available a maximum of 111 hours, allowing for cover over the nights following each day shift and until 10:00 am on the day after the second day shift. This allows for no time to get home, or have a reasonable rest period following any shift. As it is the 11 hours would give 98 hours in a 7 day period so the work-home travel would soon drop this to under 90 and any allownace ofr staff to have had a break after a shift means that 90 hours is unattainable. I would be asking just how a WDS employee can provide 90 hours cover. 78 hours is a hell of lot of cover out of the 98 that can be achieved if the WDS walks out of the station door and is on call immedialtey and never has any rest break. Challenge the unreasonably stringent requirement and not think about whether it is against any union policy. After all if the FRS is keen to have WDS staff fill RDS vacancies (and they are an easy resource to employ - no training and on call the day you select them) then a drop to a lower availability would be sensible, and safer.

[Cut Fire Service Pay]

I know that a friend of mine is W/T in 'a brigade in the south west' and he does about a 120 or so hr contract, he responds right up to the moment he goes on duty! (as he does ret duties at the same station) he has also been out all day on a job and then gone onto WT duty at night, He is FBU.

His brigade are introducing this awful retained salary duty system which limits the hours to 86ish though.
The FBU there wants a 48 or so hour week but i dont' know if this has been brought in. He had to sign a secondry contract and even has a second brigade number as a result.

Im all for WT personnel doing retained duties as I did it myself until recently, but I does hide the real problems of retained recruitment and retention as brigades prefer to take on WT as they dont have to train them!

[fireftrm]

Fantastic! With only 168 hours in a week he manages to squeeze WDS and then RDS availability into 162 of them! Where does the 2 x periods of 24 hours free from duty fit with that? No doubt he/the FRS use the 2 days that he wasn't actually called out? What happens if he is out on a shout when the WDS duty is to start? What then about the lack of a crw on the WDS pump? No doub they get an RDS employee to work and his pay stops in RDS at that time as he is already being paid? What about H&S with no true rest periods?

A minefiled waiting to stampeded over. Oh, how the employment lawyers will make a killing over that.

[Andy Cole]

If a WDS can work RDS then why can't it work the other way round?

[Cut Fire Service Pay]

Haven't got a clue & thats modernisation I suppose, covering up the real problems the fire service have. Mind you when I worked retained, WT personnel were booked off most weekends leaving the retained to provide the cover! Not much is said about that, even though they were on 120 hr cover contracts, so in fact they probably do get a fair bit of time off.

As for retained doing WT, there are brigades who second retained personnel to work WT for fixed periods and to cover the odd day here and there.

[Kaiser]

If a WDS can work RDS then why can't it work the other way round?

That has happened in my brigade and still does.  Nottinghamshire have a system of auxilliary crewing where retained firefighters can work shifts with wholetime watches.  This system does have its flaws though, the wholetime aren't allowed to get the overtime and retained work it at standard pay rates and not overtime, this leads to bitterness by some watch members and it ends up where there is an atmosphere for the shift.  I appreciate that there are some genuine guys out there who just want to be firefighters, but some of the retained have provoked other wholetime firefighters in to rows over it and everyone ends up walking on eggshells to prevent harassment cases.

I personally have no problem with RDS or WDS working each others systems but there needs to be clarity as to what it or isn't allowed

[firelawmac]

Hi Everyone,

My Brigade has just implimented a W/T Retained policy that states a W/T employee has to do a minimum of 90 hours cover a week ie 75% cover, this is the minimum allowed under Grey book. It requires the individual to opt out of the Work Time Derective and sign a secondary contract of employment.
     FBU policy as agreed at conference 2005 (I think), states W/T members can do a maximum of 78 hours a week retained cover and here lies the problem. Management and my local FBU could have negotiated a local agreement but didn't, leaving Firefighters in the unenviable position of either serving their local community and going against FBU policy or towing the union line and having a policy that nobody can work!
    My question is " Is anybody working a W/T Retained policy that falls outside the FBU's" I really want to do the retained duty, yes I know its a big commitment, but I don't have any responsibities ie children, or a life (just joking), but I do not want to be the only wholetime Firefighter in the country going against the union.

  I look forward to your replies

Boona,

Simple solution!! Leave the FBU!!

It has no teeth now anyway, and to be honest looking in from the outside with alot of experience of workplace and employment legal issues they are a bit of a joke to be honest!

(How can they agree to modernise to secure a pay rise, then oppose every modernisation initiative as they come up, then expect to get another good pay rise when the time to negotiate comes round again!!!)

If your representative body no longer represents whats important to you, why stick with them, there are alternatives!

[Andy Cole]

Fair enough maybe it's just the ultra modern D&SFRS who are behind with modern practices!!

[Kaiser]

(How can they agree to modernise to secure a pay rise, then oppose every modernisation initiative as they come up, then expect to get another good pay rise when the time to negotiate comes round again!!!)


YOU MUST BE JOKING FIRELAWMAC !!


I personally don't agree with a lot of the things that the union does but to say they disagree with every modernisation initiative it crap!!!!
Lets get real on what"Modernisation" means as it seems to be very different in some brigades. There are CFO's or Firemasters out there that think that Modernisation means they can introduce stupid schemes, close fire stations, reduce fire cover and if anyone disagrees with them, the aforementioned officer makes a stoppage of 10% of their pay or places them on disciplinary charges.

There are lots of CFO's out there on very thin ice, the government is already in the process of almagating control rooms, they've already done it to the ambulance services, they've tried it on the police and sure as eggs is eggs they are going to do it with the fire service.
It seems that chiefs are doing their best to introduce as much change as possible, regardless of whether the changes have any point, purely and simply to fight for the pecking order when the fire services join forces because there will be to many chiefs and not enough indians. Oh yes! it's all blamed on IRMP and in the name of modernisation but it doesn't matter if it is to the detriment of the service provided to the public.
The union may have lost some of its power, but not everything they do is bad or for the wrong reasons, this is from a man who has had more than his fair share of run in's with union officials

[firelawmac]

WOAH THERE KAISER!!

I am merely informing you of how they are percieved by outside organisations and to some extent the public. The ins and outs of what modernisation is are for those within the Fire and Rescue Service to sort out.

So no i am not joking, just merely relating facts from the other side of the fence.

It is also my opinion that the FBU would be better equipt to put forward an argument if they ensured that they were fully informed of the issues before jumping straight in. (I hasten to add that this is relating to the local branches rather than the heirarchy).