The NZPFU maintains its advice and actions to reduce the unnecessary contact and large number of crews from the previous bubble arrangement of Albany/West Harbour and Takapuna/Silverdale stations.

FENZ management have emailed Waitemata firefighters today stating that the single station bubbles are not to be followed.

The NZPFU position and advice remains unchanged from yesterday’s National notice. It is not in our member’s health and safety interests to accept overtime for the West Harbour and Silverdale yellow watch under Level 3 restrictions and in the context of the highly contagious variant that has been confirmed within Auckland’s community transmission.

FENZ has yet to provide any operational reason for West Harbour and Silverdale volunteers not to comply with the SDPP that states volunteers are only to respond to station for emergencies.  

We are very concerned that FENZ’s arrangements unnecessarily increase contacts by 30 firefighters during this Level 3 lockdown.  We have tried repeatedly to resolve this matter with FENZ and provided options for resolution that would prevent the unnecessary level of contact and exposures while maintaining response. FENZ did not even respond to all options suggested by the NZPFU which were raised to ensure the abundance of precaution with the current Level 3 restrictions and to maintain response.

In unity,
Wattie Watson
National Secretary