Fire EBA row engulfs MFB
THE bombshell letter from MFB Chief Officer Peter Rau to Emergency Services Minister James Merlino confirms the long-running CFA dispute has broken containment lines.
Opinion
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THE bombshell letter from MFB Chief Officer Peter Rau to Deputy Premier and Emergency Services Minister James Merlino, revealed on Wednesday by the Herald Sun, confirms that the CFA dispute has broken containment lines and is now engulfing the metropolitan fire service.
The letter, sent to Mr Merlino on June 30, is a devastating critique of the United Firefighters Union’s interference in the MFB’s operations and the controversial enterprise bargaining agreement proposed for the CFA.
Mr Rau expresses his concern that safety would be compromised if the CFA agreement proceeded and was applied to the MFB.
It’s clear that the public and MFB officers, as first responders to an emergency call, could be genuinely put at risk.
His letter outlines how the EBA would hamstring the service from doing its job. And that will alarm Victorians who depend on the emergency services to save lives and protect their property.
The true impact of Premier Daniel Andrews’s pro-union takeover of the CFA has now been writ large.
And it illustrates the utter folly of what the Premier is proposing.
The MFB letter to Mr Merlino was sent in the immediate aftermath of the sackings and the forced resignations among the CFA hierarchy in June.
Both former emergency services minister Jane Garrett and CFA chief executive Lucinda Nolan were forced to resign, and the entire CFA board was summarily sacked as Mr Andrews and his browbeaten Cabinet pushed through his scorched earth policy.
The leadership of Ms Garrett and Ms Nolan was much respected among CFA members and the board.
They resisted yielding to the Cabinet’s determination to force through an agreement that would impact on 60,000 volunteer firefighters and the ability of the CFA to respond quickly and efficiently to emergencies.
Those pro-union flaws in the agreement now threaten further the MFB’s operations.
“This (CFA) proposal would, if applied to the MFB, exacerbate the failings of the current MFB agreement,” the letter says.
In other words, it would make an already bad deal disastrous.
Mr Rau tells Mr Merlino that the provisions to consult and agree on operational matters are simply unacceptable.
And it’s not just fire emergencies — Mr Rau acknowledges the existence of modern-day security threats, and that the MFB has taken steps to deal with the escalating risks of those potential events.
These dangers require a rapid and decisive response. Time is of the essence. Immediate action is paramount.
It clearly is not a time for negotiation and consultation with unions.
The leadership of the MFB has to make crucial, timely calls and that’s the responsibility the public has entrusted it with.
Mr Rau’s letter contains the startling revelation that the MFB’s current EBA also allows for union veto that severely compromises management’s authority.
In his words, union interference makes his job unworkable and undermines community safety.
Mr Rau also claims the UFU’s actions hampered operations during heatwaves in Victoria last summer, when the inability to reach agreement meant MFB personnel and resources were tied up negotiating outcomes in the Fair Work Commission.
The Victorian public will be rightly concerned that instead of co-ordinating the fight against potentially deadly fires on the frontline, some members of MFB management were locked in industrial negotiations in Exhibition St.
The UFU even meddled with everyday MFB operational matters to such an extent that the union objected to the movement of one fire truck from Eastern Hill station to Sunshine station.
“There is no merit or logic in me having to consult the UFU on the movement of resources,’’ Mr Rau says.
These telling examples serve to highlight how the proposed agreement with the CFA would be unworkable and, frankly, dangerous, and further escalate the already bitter dispute.
Under the proposed EBA, at least seven paid firefighters are required to attend the scene of every incident, as well as a move to prevent volunteers issuing orders.
The deal insults and subverts the decades of independent service of our country fire crews.
It’s those very men and women — the backbone of country Victoria — who battled the multiple infernos on Black Saturday in February 2009, when 173 people died.
The State Government has been in denial about the toxic nature of this dispute, which now encompasses the MFB.
Mr Andrews’s stubborn support for union power exercising third-party control over the management of an emergency service flies in the face of public common sense.
It’s now time for the moderate members of Cabinet — and there are some around the table — to rise up and confront the Premier and urge him to back down.
Mr Andrews has gone too far in backing the UFU and its leader, Peter Marshall, and putting the safety of Victorians at risk.
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