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| As you may have read in the press or seen
on TV, Your Local Firefighters, including those of us who serve
as Part Time professional firefighters, are being forced in to taking
industrial action for the first time in 25 years. We have published
this leaflet to help you understand our position. When we are ‘on call’ we respond to incidents from our homes or places of work. Being ‘on-call’ means we carry an alerter or pager. When this goes off, we must drop everything and immediately respond to our Fire Station. Emergency Fire Control operators expect a Fire engine to be on the way to an incident in less than 5 minutes. This means that as Part Time Firefighters we have to be ready to respond 24 Hours a day, 7 days a week regardless of the weather or personal circumstances at the time. It means for example that if we go anywhere with our children, we have to take someone else in case the pager sounds. We cannot travel outside our local area when on call because we will not get back to the Fire Station in time. Our Employers demand these commitments and place restrictions on us and our families, for an on-call fee of just l5p an hour, and then pay us just over £4 an hour after stoppages. We have been offered a 4% increase. This amounts to a rise of just 0.6p an hour in our ‘on call’ fee! Does this seem reasonable? Perhaps it explains why we struggle to recruit part time firefighters around the country! We feel that this ‘offer’ along with what is supposed to be an independent inquiry, is completely unfair. We have let our employers know this but they are unwilling to enter into meaningful negotiations. They say they accept we need a substantial increase but won’t agree the figures already put forward by independent researchers; nor will they say what they believe the figure for a fair rate of pay for us should be. We are paid as unskilled workers. We do not believe firefighters on any duty system are unskilled. Dealing with fires, car crashes and other incidents such as chemical spillages takes a great deal of skill as well as dedication, courage and professionalism. This is why we have been forced into taking industrial action. Our employers won’t even say what they believe we are worth or recognise our claim for fair pay! All we are asking for is a fair wage that better reflects the level of commitment, dedication, and professionalism we provide to you, and the training we undertake. We do not think that is unreasonable. We have informed our employers that we will not be able to respond to incidents on strike days for the first time in ¼ of a century. The responsibility of the local Fire Authority is to maintain fire cover in your area. They propose to do this using the armed forces. We regret taking this action but our employers have forced us into this position. We hope things can be resolved quickly and we can return to providing the professional service our local communities deserve. We also want to see the fire service properly funded and moved from the property protecting service we have at present to the life protecting service the government say they want but are refusing to fund. We hope this helps you understand our position and support our plight. Thank you for taking the time to read this leaflet. For fire safety information visit us at your local fire station Dean Mills Regional Secretary Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you have any queries or want any more information please contact me on:
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