24 hour shifts and roster flexibility – update #10
2015 SCOM election – ballot closes Monday
Leading Station Officer FAQ now available
As anticipated in SITREP 12, an agreed Leading Station Officer FAQ was finalised today and can now be accessed by clicking here. The Department is expected to publish the same FAQ on the intranet shortly. Station Officer members should also note that the Department has commenced holding online information webinars on application techniques including preparing your portfolio and interview skills. See the FRNSW intranet for dates and details of how to participate.
Members will note that the LF and LSO FAQs both concern only the application and test/selection processes for those ranks. We originally intended to provide a comprehensive FAQ on all aspects of these new ranks, including their training and practical operation, but some details remain unresolved.
For example, the FRNSW/FBEU Training Review Committee is still discussing how long the face to face component of the LF Program will run at the College. The Union will be guided by the advice of our members who are preparing that Program (ie, the experts) on that question.
And the Department is still arguing that LFs and LSOs who act up are performing higher duties, not outduties, but this ignores subclause 12.18. Members should be under no doubt that acting up away from your base station/location will count as an outduty and will be subject to the 12 per annum limit (although like all outduties, members will be able to elect to perform more act-ups if they choose to).
These issues are being steadily worked through cooperatively, and both parties are committed to having them resolved within weeks rather than months, and certainly well before they affect any member.
24 hour shifts and roster flexibility – update #10
Our complaint in SITREP 11 about getting on the same page struck a chord with senior management, who to their credit have been working with us to produce an agreed FAQ on the operation of alternative rosters and changes of shift. This should hopefully be finalised and available before week’s end.
Next Friday, 17 April marks the start of the next 8 week roster cycle – and the starting date for more stations to commence working 24 hour shifts. Members are reminded that: (a) it is not necessary for every member of the station to work the same roster; and (b) that no member should feel obliged or coerced in to agreeing to work an alternative roster, and that the Union will support any member who wishes to stay on the 10/14, which remains the default roster for every station working 24 hour shifts.
2015 SCOM election – ballot closes Monday
The Electoral Commission of NSW today advised that only 1,000 of the 6,100 ballot papers posted to members home addresses have been returned. This is disturbingly low, and does not reflect well on our Union. Members are urged to exercise your democratic right to vote. Voting closes at 5pm next Monday 13 April, so if you have not already completed your ballot paper and returned it, do so as a matter of urgency. Ballots received after 5pm Monday will not be counted.
Jim Casey
State Secretary
For a printable copy of this SITREP, please click here.
Inside this issue: