The Fire Service have had the Project running for some months now. Black Watch workers (who are the most affected) have been remediated.

Progress is now focused on rostered workers.

The following has been received from the Fire Service.

Holidays Act and Pay Remediation project update

Fire and Emergency New Zealand have provided us with an update of recent and planned project activities to ensure that staff are correctly paid for leave. They have consulted with us and the NZPFU support these changes to ensure Fire and Emergency are meeting their obligations under the Holidays Act 2003.

System changes

• System changes to correctly pay for rostered uniformed and Communication Centre employees annual holidays are being implemented on 14 January 2019.
• Annual holidays will no longer be paid in advance to rostered employees based on their leave group, but paid at the commencement of the annual holiday.

Remediation payments

• The first remediation payments for the rostered employees who have leave patterns that are straightforward are scheduled to commence on 13 February 2019. The first payment will be for annual leave taken between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2017.
• The payments for rostered employees where there are a range of different leave patterns, e.g. who have been in a Black Watch position or had leave without pay are expected to commence on 10 April 2019
• The second payment for rostered employees who have leave patterns that are straightforward for leave taken between 1 January 2018 and 16 January 2019 are scheduled to be completed by late April 2019.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand have published a National Notice to provide more information. You can check out their Portal page Holidays Act and Pay Remediation project > The project’s next steps for a summary on the work involved and its status.