The Parliamentary Governance and Administration Select Committee Inquiry will continue this Wednesday hearing from firefighters and other NZPFU members and submitters.

The public hearings commenced last Wednesday with FENZ Board Chair Rebecca Keoghan, CE and self-appointed National Commander Kerry Gregory, Deputy National Commander Megan Stiffler and DCE Corporate Services Darryl Purdy appearing yet they were still unable to answer many questions despite having weeks to prepare and gather the relevant information. To view the video of their appearance go here. 

The Governance and Administration Committee will continue to hear from submitters this Wednesday and every Wednesday until further notice.

Those that indicated they wanted to appear before the Committee should receive emails with proposed times from the Committee administrator.  Most will be offered 10-minute slots and the option of appearing in person or via video conference.   The Members of Parliament on the Committee will have read your submission and may have prepared some questions for you.  You will have an opportunity to speak first so that is the time to outline the key points you want to make and also the time to update any information you provided in your submission if events have changed or new issues have arisen since you filed your evidence. 

All hearings can be viewed here.

NZPFU FENZ MEETING TODAY

The NZPFU National Committee is meeting with FENZ CE Kerry Gregory, DCE People Janine Hearn and Deputy National Commander Megan Stiffler today.

The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the breakdown of the trust or confidence in FENZ management with a view to discussing a way forward to developing the critical relationship with the NZPFU.  Without trust, there is no relationship as currently the Union cannot rely on FENZ to honour agreements (including terms and conditions of employment) or openly and honestly focus on its core responsibilities under the Fire and Emergency Act.  

Months ago the NZPFU sought a meeting with FENZ to try and get a constructive conversation to discuss bargaining and other national issues.   FENZ rejected the NZPFU’s proposal to have the assistance of a third party who played a significant role in the settlement of the 2022 collective bargaining dispute.  Ironically FENZ rejected that support on the basis of that person’s experience.

The NZPFU then proposed meeting in a hui context to enable both parties to articulate their issues with assistance to try to find a way of engagement. Members were informed of this offer in this notice. 

The NZPFU was actively seeking to engage particularly after the Employment Relations Authority had ruled that FENZ breached the NZPFU and PSA consultation clauses and had breached good faith in the manner it had unilaterally formulated a detailed wide-ranging restructure that could have resulted in the loss of nearly 200 positions and affected hundreds of others as well as emergency response.   More on that significant decision can be read here. 

Kerry Gregory responded, focused only on wanting to meet in order for FENZ to continue with its restructure plans. 

More recently the Union proposed both parties consider a “high performance high engagement” model that has been touted as a success behind the new constructive Ports of Auckland and the Maritime Union relationship that is focused on the safety of employees and has permeated all aspects of the relationship including bargaining.

While Kerry Gregory did not reject looking at that programme he again remained focused on the restructure.

In between, there have been attempts to get back to bargaining, but there is no point if FENZ is not going to make a new and enhanced offer.  The NZPFU has repeatedly stated it is willing and ready to return to bargaining, in facilitated bargaining or without a facilitator, provided FENZ provides a new offer.

For the NZPFU the issue has been a systematic attack on our members' terms and conditions of employment and the way in which FENZ attempted to force through the restructure is just one example.   There is no trust in the relationship as we believe FENZ has proven they cannot be trusted to be transparent and to focus funding or prioritise resourcing for emergency response.  We have seen serious failures without any apparent accountability or rectification and significant waste of funding while the fire service is driven into the ground. 

We were hopeful that the settlement in 2022 would have been the foundation to build the relationship so that training and resourcing was focused on the key purposes of the organisation.  The working parties on appliances and staffing were key to that process but by late 2024 FENZ was slyly delaying and then walking away from those principles.

We have seen numerous attacks on the rights of our members, including using public CCTV to undertake surveillance of striking members and their supporters.

Today the NZPFU will set out the issues for FENZ including that there is no trust not only between the Union officials and FENZ management but there is no trust or respect between our membership and FENZ leadership either.  We hope that FENZ will view this as an opportunity to change their approach and concentrate their energy on building a constructive relationship.   For the Union one of the first priorities that will demonstrate any change will be FENZ’s ongoing approach to bargaining.

In unity,
Wattie Watson
National Secretary