That says it all you should campaign for the eight hour shift that would resolve it.
Once again, a throw away comment that could lead to the implementation of an idiotic shift system where antagonisation of firefighters that have to bear the brunt of it, in no way affects the persons wanting to implement it.
Lets look at how this could work then shall we
8 hour shifts doing annualised hours is only implementable by doing continuous rolling on to the next shift.
e.g.
2 early
2 afternoon
2 night shifts
followed by 2 off
or multiples thereof, yet by doing this system, each firefighter would be working 6 hours in to their so called "1st day off". In actual fact, the firefighters concerned would never get 2 days off. This would lead to even higher levels of sleep disruption due to a constantly changing body clock. If the system increased the number of days on each shift in order to get 2 and 1/2 days off at the end of the working rota, each firefighter would have worked ten days on the trot. In the private sector where 8 hour shift systems are worked, it is done Monday to Friday with a full weekend off.
How come members that throw these idiotic ideas on to this forum don't admit that they are senior managers who are unaffected by the crazy changes that they are so desperate to implement.
As for myself, I am not some union flag waving militant bloke who wants to argue with all changes, what I am is an operational Crew Manager who is fed up with stupid changes brought about purely and simply because middle managers are so keen to impress SMT's that they have lost the plot and are dumping on good men and women purely for their own career progression. In addition to this, I actually care about the people I work with, not because some mission statement says so or because the powers that be tell me to, it's because the people I work with are worth it, I wish I could say the same about some of the so called senior managers.
There have been some very good changes brought about by the strike and IRMP's, but the pendulum has swung way to far over to one side, it is time that operational issues, welfare of personnel and sensible management was re-introduced and the pendulum swung a little bit closer to the middle.
I personally feel that there are lots of CFO's and Firemasters out there that are very scared about the safety of their positions. The ambulance services have all recently been merged, fire controls are being merged, the government have tried to merge police forces and it is only a matter of time before it happens with the fire service. This would mean that a lot of senior officers would be surplus to requirement and no longer quite as important as they currently are. In order to elevate their status within the Department for Communities and Local Government who are our lords and masters these days, they come up with crazy things to implement so that they can say
"look at what I've achieved"
Maybe it's time that these managers actually listened to what is being said at ground floor level and then they would get much more support from the people that matter, the firefighters that deal with incidents, carry out home safety assessments, fit smoke alarms and give the fire service, the good name it has always had.
