NT United Workers Union on long fight for pay
NT United Workers Union secretary Erina Early has laid out the long fight for a new enterprise agreement – and the value she says it shows for our firefighters.
Opinion
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Firstly, on behalf of all NT Government Fire fighters, we want to thank Territorians for their support over the past 1039 days. As of October 23, 2023, the NT Fire and Rescue Service enterprise agreement was approved by the Fair Work Commission.
As most Territorians know, the fire fighters enterprise agreement negotiations journey was protracted, nasty and disrespectful to fireys, and has caused significant damage to the working relationship between fireys and NTFRS.
The NT fireys enterprise agreement negotiations started like every other NTPS agreement.
For some reason a Labor government run by Michael Gunner tabled a wage policy that saw no wage increases to the public sector.
This blatant disregard to their public service workers caused protected industrial action across the NT and saw rallies, walk-offs and protests from fireys, correctional officers, teachers, Power and Water, T Gen, nurses, Aboriginal health practitioners and more.
Public sector workers stood united side by side demonstrating their disgust with the wage policy.
This wage freeze impacted not only public sector workers wages but also had a huge effect on private sector workers – giving bosses the green light not to give their workers wage increases either. No wage increases meant no boost to our economy.
After successful campaigning and a change of chief minister, in October 2022 the wage freeze was truly smashed by the union movement – ANNF, ETU, UWU, CPSU, AMWU, AEU – and the policy was amended to incorporate an annual wage increase.
There is indeed power in a union.
Over the next 10 months, the different government enterprise agreements and their union members agreed on their enterprise agreement negotiations.
The NT fireys are the last government enterprise agreement to be finalised and approved by the Fair Work Commission.
As identified, the fireys’ journey to finalisation of their agreement is one for the history books.
My fireys, your NT fireys, have endured a lot over these 1039 days.
A firey union delegate reported the misuse of overtime and the cost implications it was having on the NTFRS budgets.
These concerns were ignored. The delegate commissioned an audit into overtime – an audit that still has not been presented to the union and fire fighters.
Another firey union delegate was adversely treated for engaging in union protected action and thrown out of a meeting.
The union took NTFRS to the Fair Work Commission and won our application – general protections for a worker exercising their workplace rights.
Police were called to speak to fire fighters for engaging in protected industrial action – writing on fire trucks.
This is appalling behaviour.
The NTFRS is continually breaching the current enterprise agreement and do so by putting the lives of Alice Springs fire fighters and the community at risk by not crewing appliances under the safe minimum staffing levels.
The NTFRS came to negotiations without any clear solutions to rectify numerous long-term organisational issues. Solutions came from firefighters themselves.
We also had the Covid pandemic where public service workers’ employment was terminated for not receiving the mandated vaccines.
The fire service felt the impact of this, and approximately eight firefighters were dismissed.
After the mandates were removed, most government agencies contacted public sector workers whose employment was terminated due to the vaccines to offer them their job back.
Not the case with the NTFRS.
The NT Fire Service would not entertain this suggestion and ignored a petition from their firefighters to re-employ these dismissed fireys.
These fireys were all very experienced and long-term Territorians.
During the final stages of the EA process, when we had agreement with the government, the NTFRS was actively trying to sabotage the negotiations and not supporting the significant improvements to track station firefighters, Alice Springs firefighters and day work firefighters.
Not sure why they were not supporting the enormous win for their firefighters.
Was it because the firefighters were tackling the crisis within the NTFRS by negotiating an agreement that addresses attraction and retention instead of executives who clearly were incapable of doing this or choosing not to do this?
The outcomes of the NT firefighters enterprise agreement will considerably change the working conditions for many firefighters.
The Fyles government is the only government in 17 years who actually listened to the fireys and provided incentives to address the attraction and retention issues in Alice Springs and track stations as well as many more improvements.
All other governments (both parties) have only given lip service and kept promising major change without delivering – huge thanks to Chief Minister Fyles and Public Sector Minister Paul Kirby.
So, there you have it – a summary of the shambles that was the enterprise agreement negotiations for fireys.
NT fireys now have the best enterprise agreement they have ever achieved.
The conduct of the NTFRS in the shaping of this recent enterprise agreement leaves a lot to be answered for. The NTFRS cannot move forward until those responsible for its conduct are made accountable for their actions.
Your NT fireys deserve better.
Erina Early is the NT United Workers Union secretary.
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