CHAOS IN THE CAPITAL
Wellington City's busiest fire truck taken off the run after FENZ fails to employ sufficient career Firefighters.
Wellington City's busiest fire truck taken off the run after FENZ fails to employ sufficient career Firefighters.
Career Firefighter staffing levels throughout Auckland continue to be at crisis levels.
Further to NZPFU National Notice sent out on Wednesday 4 May, this is a reminder to all members that nominations have been called for the positions of Auckland Local President, Vice-President, Secretary and Committee members.
The crisis in FENZ. How the organisation has lost its way. The interview you don't want to miss.
Huge turnouts were seen at the Wellington and Masterton Local meetings last week.
After years of lobbying, and a recent battle to prevent unsafe crewing, the NZPFU is pleased to announce the Levin community will soon be protected with a professional career crew.
Further to NZPFU National Notice sent out on Monday (2 May), this is a reminder to all members of membership meetings being held in the Auckland Local to vote on the FENZ summary of offer and industrial action.
The Coroner will be conducting a broad inquiry into the shocking and tragic deaths of 51 people who died as a result of the terrorist attack at the Masjid an-Nur and the Linwood Islamic Centre by a lone shooter on 15 March 2019 in Christchurch.
The workhorses of the country's fire truck fleet are beset by a new range of mechanical faults.
The proverb you can’t make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear comes to mind when reading FENZ’s attempts to dress up its current offer to settle the bargaining as a position of value.
In accordance with the NZPFU Rules, nominations are hereby called for every Local for the positions of President, Secretary, Vice President and Committee members.
NZPFU members are urged to attend a membership meeting to participate in the ballots on industrial action and the FENZ summary of offer. The meetings kick off in Wellington and Masterton this Thursday. See below for the detailed list and please note the different venues.
Today the Deputy Public Service Commissioner Helene Quilter QSO announced an independent review of FENZ’s progress to address workplace culture and complaint handling practices. The Review is to independently assess the progress FENZ has made since the 2019 Shaw Report, what is working, and what needs to be improved or accelerated.
The Union’s group life compensation insurance has had a 3 yearly re-market whereby the broker, Mercer Marsh Benefits tests the market for the type of insurance we currently get.
The NZPFU had previously informed FENZ we wanted to work with FENZ to ensure members were provided with appropriate information to educate and raise awareness of Long Covid19 and its health implications.
NZPFU membership meetings have been organised across the country for members to vote on the FENZ Collective Agreement offer and industrial action.
Welcome to the downslope of the Omicron outbreak, hopefully this will be the beginning of the end as far as our Covid-19 panic goes.
The National Committee has met in person over the past two days to discuss in detail the FENZ offer to settle the collective agreement negotiations.
It’s been quite a while since my last blog. I’ve been off on Work Accident, a benefit of logging the original injury 3 years ago, gone through minor surgery to my knee and underwent a strenuous interview for SSO.
The Parliamentary Labour Union Caucus has written to the NZPFU to thank members who were impacted by the recent occupation of the Parliament precinct.
The NZPFU advises Health and Safety Reps and other members that FENZ has underhandedly attempted to push through risk assessments on firefighter roles so that FENZ can require the firefighters to be vaccinated should the Government lift the current vaccination mandate.
The National President Ian Wright, National Vice President Joseph Stanley and I met with DCE People Brendan Nally, DCE Finance and Business Operations Darryl Purdy and FENZ lead negotiator Chris Wells last week seeking to push FENZ to vastly improve its position.
The NZPFU has been pushing FENZ to review its vaccination policy in light of recent developments.
The election for the NZPFU Southern Branch Vice President closed on Friday evening. Congratulations to Aaron McKay who was duly elected to the position of Southern Branch Vice President.
NZPFU members in the South Island are reminded that the election for the Southern Branch Vice President position closes at 1700 hours this Friday (18 March 2022).
The Wellington region has been left with no coverage by large firetrucks this week after the latest breakdown.
The Public Service Commission has put public sector employers including FENZ on notice that they must review vaccination policies and to pause any processes that may lead to the termination of employees due to vaccination status.
As members will know, staffing levels throughout Tamaki Makaurau are at critically low levels with fire trucks often short staffed or unavailable for response and 111 Fire Communication Centres under-staffed. Until such time as a Vacancy Fulfilment Policy has been agreed upon with FENZ, our safe systems of work are completely reliant on the application of the Critical Worker Exemption Scheme.
Further to the ongoing series of notices on Fire and Emergency’s willingness to close down fire stations in a pandemic; fire trucks and fire stations throughout Auckland continue to close down, fire trucks continue to respond to emergencies with less than safe staffing or without trained Officers, and Fire Communication Centres are continually operating short staffed.
The NZPFU and FENZ agree that firefighters should never be used as part of Police operations or enforcement.
As notified in National Notice “Bargaining Update 21st February” a series of information meetings have been organised throughout the country to be held via Zoom.
A High Court decision released today has determined that the vaccination mandate affecting a select group of Police and Defence must be set aside.
Warnings from the Union about the state of the Fire and Emergency fleet around the lack of funding, strategic planning, inadequate servicing and repair, have unfortunately come to fruition.
Bay of Plenty Local reps and District management met yesterday to discuss the impact of Omicron on both staff safety, and Operational Capability concerns.
Members will be aware that Fire and Emergency continues to treat the safety of the New Zealand public with contempt, with the decision to relocate specialist heavy aerial resourcing from Auckland to Hamilton, leaving 1.72 million people with just the protection of ONE heavy aerial rescue truck.
Late last week FENZ provided an adjusted offer. FENZ has not provided all the information we requested and therefore we still do not have full disclosure from FENZ.
Please be advised that by closing date for nominations for the position of Southern Branch Vice-President, the following nominations were received.
The NZPFU continues to take every opportunity to represent Members’ interests in national and legal forums.
With the Government announcing the country is moving to Phase Two tonight, Rapid Antigen Testing (RAT) and isolation exemptions for workers designated as critical workers will be introduced.
The dangerous saga of appliances failing at fires has occurred far too often in recent times with the most recent failure of an aerial appliance at a critical time during a structure fire in residential Kilbirnie.
On Tuesday afternoon FENZ provided a revised remuneration and financial offer.
Firefighters are refusing to work on a fire truck left stranded without power to its big ladder at a blaze that destroyed a Wellington house last week.
During a planned NZPFU NCOM and Locals meeting this afternoon we received a revised offer from FENZ for Firefighter and Officer pay scale.
FENZ has failed to provide their revised position on wage increases and matters they consider as “remuneration and financial responses”. The NZPFU deadline passed this afternoon.
There is confusion over the application of the Covid-19 vaccination mandate for firefighters. The amended Health Order has now been released.
Further to our notice of 9th January, career fire stations and fire trucks continue to face crisis levels of staffing, with several stations closed during the day due to a lack of career firefighters, with many more fire trucks responding to emergencies with below the minimum safe number of firefighters.
Members are advised it is not in your interest to register an expression of interest as an Subject Matter Expert (SME) for the Technical Competency Framework (now named Paearu Mahi) working parties. If you have already done so we urge you to withdraw.
Nominations are called for the position of Vice-President for the Southern Branch.
Members will no doubt have heard that unfortunately the International Convention Centre fire caught fire once again.
Congratulations to Mark Leonard elected as Southern Branch Secretary and Rik Walsh elected as Central Branch Vice President.
I declare RIK WALSH duly elected to the position of Central Branch Vice President.
FENZ has organised a pilot ILDC course for February 2022 that does not require participants to have any qualifications, training or experience and intend to include both qualified professional career, non-qualified Group Managers and a Red Cross participant.
NZPFU Central Branch members are reminded the election for the Central Branch Vice President position closes this Thursday 13th January at 1700 hours.
Decades of neglect towards career firefighter staffing levels are hitting crisis point throughout Auckland Fire Stations this summer as career fire stations are closed and fire trucks respond to emergencies short staffed due to a shortage of staffing.