retained or part time

[savo97]

does any body have the right answer ? are retained firefighters officialy known as retained or part time  the reason i ask is because i just had a meeting with the head of hr and i came up with a question about the prevention of unfair treatment to part time workers act and i was told it did not apply to us retained, because we are not officialy known as part time firefighters .

[Nearlybaldandgrey]

I would suggest that you are Retained ...... you are paid a retaining fee for the provision of hours of cover and then per call/attendance.

A part-time worker works part of a full working week and is paid as such.

[fireftrm]

Retained duty system employees are, as Baldyman says, those who are contracted to provide availabilty to respond to fire calls, for which they receive a retaining fee. Part time duty systems are those with fixed hours of work, less than that of the full time employee. Having said this RDS staff are comitted to a set 2 (or 3) hour drill period, so it is not entirely legally clear. This forms part of the FBU v certain employers test case on RDS pensions.

What was your question to HR?

[savo97]

my question was  about trasfering from retained to whole time or day crew. i mean the brigade keeps telling us that we are all equal , all our training is the same ,we can work with whole time ,we can ride with whole time ,we can sit on stand by at a whole time station in fact we can do anything but transfer to whole time.

[Dinnertime Dave]

Savo,

Some brigades do allow transfers - mine included but, not at firefighter level. Firefighters go through the ADC process and if successful may be offered a wholetime post as Crew Manager. I think (but don`t quote me) that we have had 3 or 4 transferred so far.

[Midland Retty]

yes grey area this

I along with some other of my colleagues provide 100 hours of RDS cover each week, which is almost twice the amount of hours I work in my full time job.

You could argue therefore that my retained stint is my full time job in a sense purely because of the ammount of hours Im on call  (clearly Im not actually doing 100 hours of work each week - im just on standby for those hours with a potential to be called out during some of them)

This is the reason Im told that we could no longer be referred to as "Part time firefighters" hence probably why the Head of HR has got a point possibly

[Mike Buckley]

There may also be a tax aspect to this, if I remember correctly there is a breakpoint where the tax man considers that you are working full time as opposed to part time, I think it is about 16 hrs.

[fireftrm]

There is no tax aspect to this. You are taxed on your pay and not on whether that is part time, full time, or other such as a lottery winner. The issue of 16 hours is for benefit purposes.

[savo97]

thanks for all your replies i find it makes interesting reading and food for thought

[toby14483]

Just to add to the fray, I once asked a Wholetime Station manager a similar question and was met with the response:

"A firefighter, is a firefighter, is a firefighter." Don't agree myslef entirely, but I think thats for a different thread.

I think Retained is what we are though... Or 'Firefighters working on the retained duty system' as our sub insists. I put more time and effort into my station than I do my regular job. And I would quite happily leave my full time job if it meant staying with the Fire Service. I get offended when someone tells me I'm a part-timer. Given as at least 5 days a week I usually give cover 24 hours a day. Though not everyone is the same.

[xan]

Just to add to the fray, I once asked a Wholetime Station manager a similar question and was met with the response:

"A firefighter, is a firefighter, is a firefighter." Don't agree myslef entirely, but I think thats for a different thread.

I think Retained is what we are though... Or 'Firefighters working on the retained duty system' as our sub insists. I put more time and effort into my station than I do my regular job. And I would quite happily leave my full time job if it meant staying with the Fire Service. I get offended when someone tells me I'm a part-timer. Given as at least 5 days a week I usually give cover 24 hours a day. Though not everyone is the same.

Toby,you are a firefighter,working the 'Retained Duty system',as you point out,not quite 'part time' when you consider the hours you are on call.But,in the 'modern ' fire service, it is as the SM said,a fire fighter is a firefighter is a firefighter,(the role map for a RDs &WT FF,pay are the same)but this only truly applies to all those now joining (both RDS &WT) who will have to undergo the same selection and training .In the meantime there are lots of people (both RDS & WT) who will not quite fullfill the present day 'criteria' but none the less have passed the set criteria 'at the time' and will continue in the Fire service.This does mean though that some RDS cannot transfer to WT automatically,but need to have a gap analysis done.Some brigades are further ahead than others in this.

[toby14483]

I think he meant that on a fireground every competent Firefighter will be expected to do the same job.
Or are in my experience anyway.

I would expect any RDS firefighter wanting to go wholetime to actually go through some checks or audits, to make sure they are up to scratch. And vice versa (Wholetime wanting to do retained in their 'spare' time).

[savo97]

would it not be better if retained could just fill out a transfer application ,do the interview then if successful they could lokk at our idr's and then come up with a training plan if one was required,as in if you serve on a very quiet station you may need a longer training plan than someone who served on a busy station