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Bathurst firies to support work ban

21 Oct, 2011 04:00 AM

BATHURST firefighters have joined a statewide ban on staff carrying out relieving duties and paperwork.
The bans were imposed yesterday morning because of an ongoing dispute over providing meaningful employment for injured firefighters.

Fire Brigade Employees Union state secretary Jim Casey said firefighting was a unique and dangerous occupation and, traditionally, injured members had been looked after.

“There was an agreement that officers unable to perform operational duties would be employed to staff the logistic support vehicles,” Mr Casey said.

“However, the Fire Brigade is not honouring this commitment and has advertised the positions as secondments to fleet personnel.

“They have not responded to repeated requests for meetings to discuss the issue, so we have been forced to take action.”

Mr Casey said the relieving bans meant staff who were relieving at other fire stations would return to their base station. “There are four relieving officers at Bathurst at present, one on each shift,” he said.

“The paperwork bans mean no statistics will be collected.”