Essex fire chiefs are putting the people and communities of Essex at unnecessarily increased risk by notifying all wholetime firefighters they will not be paid and are not required to report for duty in the small hours of New Year’s Day, firefighters have claimed.
This is punishment meted out locally only for Essex firefighters taking part in a short period of national strike action over pensions.
Nowhere else in the country has made this decision or is putting their communities at increased risk.
The FBU has called a national, six-hour period of lawful strike action from 6.30pm on New Year’s Eve and ending at half past midnight. No striking firefighter gets paid for the lawful period of strike. But when all other firefighters will be returning to work normally, fire chiefs in Essex have told their full time fire crews they are not required to return to duty until 9 am on New Year’s Day – eight and a half hours after the national strike has ended.
At the same time fire chiefs have ordered the very many retained firefighters (on-call from home) who will continue to strike that they must return to duty and be paid immediately at half past midnight at the end of the lawful period of strike.
Matt Wrack, FBU General Secretary: “This is an incredibly irresponsible decision. It is completely unnecessary and turns the lawful, six-hour national strike called by the FBU into a 15-hour period of significantly reduced 999 cover in Essex on the orders of fire chiefs. Everyone knows the stand-in cover during strike periods is unreliable and has a very much reduced capacity to deal with emergencies. This irresponsible decision puts the safety of the public in Essex – and the stand-in crews themselves – at increased risk by more than doubling the length of time they must rely on the reduced skeleton cover.
“In a bizarre twist, the Essex fire chiefs say it is not a “lock-out” as they will allow striking firefighters to work for free until 9am on New Year’s Day. Even Scrooge paid Marley a pittance for working on a public holiday! At the same time it is believed the reduced stand-in cover will be paid up to four times more than the standard rates of pay for working the additional hours of effective lock-out.
“There is no legal requirement forcing them to do this and seems at complete odds with their public sympathy with firefighters over the government’s successive years of hikes in employee pension contributions and the obvious problems of firefighters staying fit enough to do the job into their late 50’s and beyond.
“Our retained members believe their orders are deliberately malicious and will place them in very awkward situations at work with their non-striking colleagues whilst their wholetime brothers and sisters are effectively locked-out until 9am. Quite simply, this one local decision risks wrecking the good work undertaken by many managers and union officials in recent months to rebuild the damaged industrial and employee relations following the three-year Essex dispute. We urge the fire authority to reconsider the decision.”
The union has notified additional strike action in Essex only for retained members (on-call from home) on 31st December 2013 (6pm – 6.30pm) and 1st January 2014 (12.30am – 9am) which corresponds with the extended periods of pay stoppage decided for firefighters working the wholetime shift system and should alleviate the anticipated discord and ensure solidarity between retained and wholetime firefighters in their fight for fair and workable firefighter pensions.
The Essex FBU has asked the fire authority to reconsider the decision made by their fire chiefs and revert to the approach taken for the previous strike periods and has offered to reciprocate by calling off the additional periods of strike action called today by the union.
