News

SitRep 15/2021

March 26, 2021

• Flood Deployments – Your Entitlements Explained
• CAFS Aerial Pumpers
• Member Win – Promotions Not Being Processed
• Sydney, Wollongong, Newcastle: Save the Date
• April Delegate Zoom Meetings
• FBEU State Committee Election
• From the State Secretary

Flood Deployments – Your Entitlements Explained

Many of our members, both Retained and Permanent, are currently deployed to assist with flood work, especially up on the Mid North Coast.

Firstly, to all of those who are helping, we want to say thank you. You are doing an extraordinary job helping those who may have lost everything. Your union, and your comrades across the state, are all proud of you and your work, and the local communities you’re working in are no doubt grateful to see you there.

The Department has a responsibility to provide certain minimum conditions for you while at a major emergency. The Award has been fought for over decades, through many disputes, and it’s vital that we enforce it and protect what we’ve won.

There are a few disagreements between senior management and the FBEU about what entitlements there are for staff. To avoid any doubt, we have created an outline of what you’re entitled to during this deployment which you can find here.

CAFS Aerial Pumpers 

We’ve become aware of the Department’s intention to start training for the new CAFS Aerial Pumpers on 25 April. However, the Department has not yet advised the Training Review Committee of the training plan nor has it shared the recommended practice documents.

While we want to see these appliances in their respective stations as quickly as possible, we need to ensure that the Department is being transparent about the rollout and that members’ concerns around the number of firefighters being trained are addressed.

Members are reminded that the acceptance of these appliances and the participation in training of these appliances is banned until such time as the Training Review Committee has seen and accepted the training. You can find the Code Red here.

The FBEU is consulting with members on this issue and we’ll advise what actions will be taken to resolve it in due course.

Member Win – Promotions Not Being Processed

We’ve recently had a number of Permanent members who have contacted us about their promotions not being processed and published in Commissioner’s Orders. This issue has mainly related to former Retained firefighters who have become Permanent and have had a few delays in having their prior service recognised.

In all cases, we have been able to get the issue resolved. If you’re experiencing the same issue, please get in contact.

Sydney, Wollongong, Newcastle: Save the Date

May Day is Saturday 1 May 2021 and marches are back! More info to come next week.

April Delegate Zoom Meetings

A reminder that the next round of delegate Zoom meetings will be kicking off next week and running throughout April. If you don’t have the details of your meeting, please contact your organiser.

Max Murphy – Regional West, Metro West, MS3 – mmurphy@fbeu.net 0408 617 217

Georgie Slater – Metro North, Regional North, ME3 – gslater@fbeu.net 0417 924 151

Jonathon Wright – Metro South (excl. MS3), Regional South, ME1 and ME2 – jwright@fbeu.net 0419 753 305

I encourage all delegates to come along to get the updates so you can discuss them with the members in your station/workplace. We’ll be covering a preliminary report on the State of the Stations project and talking about next steps, as well as updating members on other major matters across the state.

FBEU State Committee Election 

The candidates for the 2021 FBEU State Committee of Management election were finalised earlier this week and sent out to all members in SitRep 13/2021. You can also find the list of candidates here.

Please ensure that the list of candidates is clearly displayed on the noticeboard in your station/workplace.

The full election timetable is here. We will keep you updated on any potential issues with postage of ballots due to the recent flooding as information comes to hand.

From the State Secretary

As reported yesterday, I’ve been in Port Macquarie and surrounding areas this week. As many of you will recall, following the Northern Rivers floods we faced numerous disputes and spent months fixing errors in pay and entitlements. A huge amount of union time was used to fix FRNSW’s mistakes.

To minimise the chance of that occurring this time, I headed up myself to see what was happening on the ground and to talk with members and delegates. As part of that we managed to resolve the problems created by FRNSW sending members mixed messages around accommodation.

The accommodation situation in events like these is a tough one but it’s important to me that members’ entitlements are not compromised regardless of how difficult it can be at times. The fact is that if we don’t enforce our hard-won entitlements, we put them at risk. I think we have managed to do that well in very trying circumstances this week.

It was great to see members engaged to assist in clean up and not just through the storms and immediate floods. We’ve shown again that our community can depend on us.

Again, I especially want to thank the local delegates and those who have been on the ground this week. The information you have provided to myself and to members has been really important. It was great to speak with and meet so many of you.

In Unity,

Leighton Drury

State Secretary

You can download this SitRep here.