The Permanent Award sets no maximum work time for members on 24 hour shifts and has relied instead on the payment of double-time to encourage management to relieve members asap after 24 hours. Unfortunately, this has not worked in practice – one member was recently forced to stay back for over 5 hours – leading the August State Committee meeting to resolve:
“That owing to the Department’s repeated inability to respect the intent of subclause 8.12.3 by relieving permanent members who are held back on overtime in a timely manner, and the apparent failure of subclause 9.2’s immediate payment at double-time rather than time and one-half to ensure that such reliefs are prioritised, State Committee determines that Union members should no longer remain on duty beyond 26 hours except in the case of a call to an incident and that it be a standing Union instruction that any Union member who:
a) has completed a 24 hour shift; and b) has been held back on overtime for a staff shortage; and c) is not attending an incident; and d) has not been relieved by the 26th hour; is to cease duty and depart the station without the provision of notice to or approval from the member’s supervising officer(s).”
Permanent members working the 24 hour roster and who are not in attendance at an emergency incident are therefore instructed to cease duty and depart the station if you have not been relieved by 1000 hours. There will be no exceptions or exemptions. This instruction shall remain in force and is to be observed by all members unless and until it is withdrawn by way of notice from the State Secretary.
Reminder – if in doubt, apply
SITREP 5/2014 advised members who are interested in an advertised vacancy or promotion, but think that something (anything) might be wrong with its conditions or the way it has been advertised, to both contact the Union and apply for the position/promotion because we can’t assist a member whose application was never submitted. Our advice to members, both then and now, is to apply first (you can always withdraw from the process if you change your mind) and ask questions later.
In brief …
The Operational Support dispute last reported in SITREP 29 returned to the IRC on Wednesday and while no agreement was reached, considerable progress was made. It is hoped that a comprehensive settlement (including the ability for retained members to apply for repeat OS vacancies) will be achieved when the dispute returns to the IRC again on 19 September. More then.
There has been nothing received from the Department since our last update on the RBRP/retained cuts threat in SITREP 30. We understand that a response is in the pipeline. All we can do in the interim is to remain ready and willing to meet with Commissioner Baxter and his team.
Health and fitness testing returns to the IRC this Monday 11 September, so more in SITREP 32.
Leighton Drury
State Secretary
For a printable copy of this SITREP, please click here.
