A growing number of members are being encouraged to attend work-related medical appointments outside of rostered hours only to be refused payment for time and travel expenses after the event.
The best way to avoid these sort of problems is to either:
a) make sure that you only do these sort of things on-shift rather than off-duty; and/or
b) confirm your entitlements with management beforehand, not afterwards.
Any member who has attended a work-related medical appointment outside of hours and who has not been paid should contact the Union.
Country Inspectors dispute on hold
Further to SITREP 35/2010, the dispute returned to the IRC last Thursday. The matter was not resolved, and was stood over until further notice. In the interim, the advertisements and the application process for the vacancies at Wagga Wagga and Dubbo that were suspended on 2 September remain so. While the Department is not expected to contravene the IRC-imposed status-quo, any attempt to fill Inspector vacancies with Station Officers will result in further bans.
Cleared by the Court, targeted by the Dept
When the Department suspended a permanent member back in April following alleged disciplinary breaches, it put its own disciplinary process on hold until the related criminal proceedings had been finalised. Those charges were dismissed by the Magistrate hearing the case last Wednesday, causing 2GBs Ray Hadley to fly into a tirade against the member, the courts and the NSWFB.
Today the Department gave our member 7 days to explain why he should not be sacked. No Preliminary Inquiry, and no Formal Inquiry, relying instead on a controversial Regulation that was the subject of a major industrial dispute in 2002. The media scrutiny of this case is similar to that given to another disciplinary matter earlier this year which resulted in a disproportionate penalty which was later overturned on Union appeal by the Industrial Relations Commission (see SITREP 23/2010). More to follow.
Contingency Plans OK
Today’s In Orders include guidelines and a template for Fire Station Contingency Plans. The Union has reviewed and approved both documents as an update of existing work, rather than new work.
Inside this issue: