Terms of Reference for Bushfire Royal Commission Announced
Award Update
As discussed in the last Sitrep, we met for the last time with FRNSW regarding the Award negotiations on Thursday 20 February 2020. This was our last attempt to resolve all outstanding items that remain in dispute. To recap these items were:
– FRNSW’s proposal to remove the 28-day restriction on performing higher duties
– 2.5% government wage increase being backdated to 17February 2020
The 2.5% wage increase backdated to 17 February 2020 still remains outstanding and is now being dealt with by the Industrial Relations Commission.
We are pleased to report, however, that at the meeting yesterday we were successful in convincing FRNSW to withdraw their claim to remove or amend the 28-day restriction on higher duties. Furthermore, both parties agreed to establish a working group called Promotional Pathway Committee, which will allow the FBEU and FRNSW to meet to address current workforce issues affecting members and to discuss solutions. A Retained working group has also been agreed to establish.
In addition to the above, we are finalising the language around the clauses relating to remaining matters that were not necessarily in dispute and had been agreed to in principle (including the Dual Badge Operational Support role). We are putting together a final draft Award to be released to the membership early next week with upcoming SGMs that will take place over the next two weeks.
Unleash your inner creative and you just might find your T-Shirt design on your annual May Day T-Shirt.
It’s also time for members across Sydney, the Illawarra and Newcastle to start making plans for May Day marches and events. The organising team will start to assist members in getting plans together in the coming weeks and there’ll be more info in future SitReps. If you work and live in a regional area and would like to organise an event or get involved in one being organised locally – please get in touch (office@fbeu.net) and we can support you.
Delegate training up and running. This week we kicked off our first delegate training for a very long time. Six delegates attended and all said it was a valuable day. Delegates most enjoyed meeting with each other and making action plans to take back into their stations and areas. As part of delegate training, the delegates are identifying issues and important information we can use as a basis for developing a whole range of fact sheets and resources for members, and each group will work on a small project following the training which will be of great benefit to all members. There’s training in Newcastle next week and a number of sessions scheduled across the state over the coming months. You can register here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/7ZMST8B.
Sessions with at least six participants will be confirmed ahead of time and will go ahead. We will release more dates as the year progresses and are working on a plan for Special Roster permanentdelegates. We are able to assist country and retained delegates with travel and accommodation to attend in Sydney when that’s the best option and are trying to make the program as accessible as possible.
This week we also hosted our first Delegate Welcome teleconference where we welcomed new and recently endorsed delegates and talked about training, lining each other up and the organising work of the union. All delegates are welcome to register for one of these teleconferences here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/7ZMST8B I encourage all delegates to try and get along if you can. We hope to have 100 of you through this Intro training by September.
Terms of Reference for Bushfire Royal Commission Announced
This week Scott Morrison released the Terms of Reference for the Royal Commission. The FBEU and other firefighting unions called for a Royal Commission a number of weeks ago and wrote to Minister Littleproud about the same. The FBEU notes that there are significant opportunities for firefighters in the Terms of Reference and we will be working with other firefighting unions to make submissions. In addition to the Royal Commission there are a variety of enquiries happening at a State and National level. The FBEU will be asking for members to share their stories, knowledge and experience to assist us in making contributions. You can see the Royal Commission Terms of Reference here:
