After considerable discussion over the past 18 months regarding issues surrounding predominantly Black Watch members in the Bay-Waikato Fire Region and their incorrect payment of wages and allowances, i.e. Part 2 versus Part 4 of the CEA as detailed in Northern Branch Notice 23rd February 2010, the Northern Branch advises that we have reached a position with Fire Service Management which allows the Northern Branch to remove our action of requesting operational staff to decline undertaking activities, i.e. BA revalidations, that would have been done by VSO's outside of their normal hours of work.

Special mention has to go to the new Bay-Waikato Region Manager Russell Wood who took up this issue with the NZFS HR Department and was able to extract a common sense workable arrangement with them, which was all the NZPFU ever sought for the duration of this dispute.

Again, our members’ resilience and unity have shown that if we are united, we can achieve the outcomes that protect members’ rights and conditions of employment.