CFA volunteers pushed to far corners of 34 stations as the Union takes control
The Andrews Government has locked FRV and the CFA into a deal that gives the United Firefighters Union the power to make volunteers’ lives a misery.
EMERGENCY Services Minister Lisa Neville has failed to sort out a festering dispute between the United Firefighters Union and volunteers, who are co-located at 34 former CFA stations that are now under the new Fire Rescue Victoria.
The volunteers have become tenants, after FRV took over as the new landlord at outer Melbourne CFA stations, plus those in Mildura, Shepparton, Wangaratta, Wodonga, Morwell, Traralgon, Geelong, Corio, Belmont, Bendigo, Ballarat, Mornington, Rosebud, Ocean Grove and Portland.
The Weekly Times has seen a letter written by Volunteer Fire Brigades Victoria chief executive Adam Barnett calling on Ms Neville to bring the UFU to heel.
“Despite significant efforts, negotiations are at an impasse due to the requirement to attain “agreement” from the UFU through the consult and agree arrangements (8in their enterprise agreement),” Mr Barnett wrote.
He said the UFU was refusing to sign off on the tenancy deal that allows co-location, demanding:
VOLUNTEERS must now book the meeting room they have been using for decades in consultation with FRV staff, rather than having full control of the space.
ALL primary turnout rooms be exclusively reserved for career firefighters, and that volunteers be moved to secondary, smaller turnout rooms, which have been previously used as overflow rooms.
OFFICE space for brigade administration is only for FRV career staff, with volunteers given a one-off $3000 grant to buy their own computers and printers-photocopiers, but with no space to set them up.
A BAN on the long-held CFA practice of supporting local community not-for-profit groups (like rotary, lions, veteran groups etc) by offering them supervised access to the volunteers’ meeting room.
DENYING senior volunteers, such as group officers and deputy group officers, access to CFA areas of the station.
“To make a complete mockery of these arrangements and add insult to injury, the UFU is now refusing to allow CFA Brigade Administration Support Officers (BASO’s) to work, or even visit the CFA parts of the co-located station,” Mr Barnett states in his letter.
He said the BASO roles were specifically created to support volunteers with these very same administrative tasks that they are being locked out of the administration room to perform.
“Having already provided countless and reasonable compromises to the outstanding matters, the UFU continues on the other hand to have taken an obstructive and uncompromising position on almost all outstanding matters,” Mr Barnett stated.
Ms Neville’s spokeswoman said the CFA was consulting volunteers on the draft Tenancy Agreement and “there was a dedicated implementation process in place” to work through and resolve any issues.
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