Dinner Allowance debacle – Restricted Duties in MN 3
MR licensing reimbursement
Dinner Allowance debacle – Restricted Duties in Metro North 3
For the past few weeks the Union has patiently waited for the Department to pay a number of MN3 members’ legitimate claims for a Dinner Allowance pursuant to Clause 26.3 of the Permanent Award. Our patience is now exhausted. The Department has not only refused to pay these claims, it simply cannot come up with a reason as to why they knocked these claims back in the first place.
As a result all permanent members in MN3 are hereby instructed that effective immediately upon receipt of this notice, no member is to perform any administrative duties (including fire reports, BRIMS, PIP’s, CARS, FANS, etc.) other than for firefighter pay or leave related matters and further, no member is to perform any FRNSW duty outside of their own station other than responding to incidents. This ban includes, but is not limited to: SABRE; school and other community group visits; and all other non-incident responses and activities.
These bans are to remain in place until further notice from the State Secretary.
Members should note that retained members within MN3 are presently exempted from these bans not because they are not Union members of equal standing, nor because this is an issue that does not affect them (and it potentially does – see Retained Award subclause 20.2), but because all of the above activities are Authorised Duties which, if banned, would simply save the Department money. This exemption will be reviewed in the event that the Department continues to refuse payment of these outstanding entitlements.
MR licensing reimbursement
The Union recently again secured the reimbursement of hundreds of dollars for permanent Recruit members who relied on incorrect advice from the Department that they needed to hold a Medium Rigid Driver’s Licence prior to the commencement of their Recruit training. Not surprisingly, this caused many pending Recruits to go out and obtain a MR licence on their own time and at their own expense.
The Union approached the Department on behalf of those members and recovered all of the driver training fees they personally incurred.
The current position is that FRNSW continues to train new Recruits to MR licence standard as part of the Recruit training program. Any member who in recent years obtained their MR licence prior to commencing Recruit training because they were advised by the Department to do so is advised to contact the Union office – you may be eligible for a refund of your costs for your driver training.
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