‘Millions’ in unpaid overtime: Rural Fire Service workers take claim to court

Hundreds of NSW Rural Fire Service staff including frontline workers could be owed millions of dollars in unpaid wages if a looming industrial relations case before the Supreme Court is successful.

The Public Service Association (PSA) will use five employees who are all allegedly owed thousands of dollars in overtime each as proxies to test the claim in court. If successful, the union estimates there could be 500 to 700 other employees with similar claims, leaving the RFS with up to $4.1 million in unpaid overtime.

The NSW RFS crew from Kundle stood their ground against a fire sweeping towards them and homes at Hillville during the Black Summer bushfires in 2019.Credit: Nick Moir

Obtained by the Herald, the 38-page statement of claim lodged with the Supreme Court on December 20 claims the RFS employees were not paid overtime loading rates despite being approved to work both outside normal work hours and on weekends, in breach of the RFS Award and the Conditions Award.

The five parties to the case claim to be owed a collective $26,938.09. In one claim, an on-call affected employee attended a structural fire for 4½ hours, yet did not receive any overtime payment.

The case centres on a dispute over whether employees should be given time in lieu for weekends and overtime worked, rather than being paid for those hours; and whether a weekend and weekday are like-for-like exchanges under the award.

The RFS has 1240 paid staff, according to its annual report, in addition to the agency’s estimated 70,000 volunteers.

PSA general secretary Stewart Little said the amount of unpaid wages alleged was disappointing, saying frontline workers shouldn’t need to sue the RFS to ensure they received overtime payments.

Stewart Little from the Public Service Association.Credit: Michael Quelch

“They’re not the only emergency services agency. This is not happening at Fire and Rescue NSW, the SES [State Emergency Services], the police or any other agency,” he said.

“The award is the award. We shouldn’t have to take industrial action to get the money these guys are owed.”

A spokesman for the RFS declined to comment, saying: “Acknowledging the impending Supreme Court hearing, the RFS deems it inappropriate to provide any further comments at this point in time.

“The organisation respects the legal process and affirms its intent to allow due course to be followed without interference. The RFS remains committed to ensuring the appropriate and consistent application of the existing Award, which has been in place for more than 20 years.”

The court action provides another headache for the agency. In December, independent analysis of the 2019-20 Gospers Mountain Fire “megablaze” found nearly a quarter of the area wiped out by the inferno resulted from fires lit by the RFS.

It came two months after an investigation by the Herald revealed a charitable association connected to the RFS only spent $12 million of the $69 million raised through donations directly on firefighters. More than half was paid to a commercial telemarketer.

The underpayment judgment could be handed down as the NSW government negotiates a string of wage claims.

In mid-December, the Health Services Union landed a historic, $500 million pay deal for paramedics, seeing an average pay increase of 25.5 per cent.

With a number of public sector workers sitting on interim deals, including the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association and PSA, the government will be grappling with pay deals across tens of thousands of public sector workers.