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DUBLIN FIRE BRIGADE (DFB) is operating at reduced capacity this week due to a dispute over overtime remuneration.
Firefighters and paramedics across the service have made themselves unavailable for overtime duty on four days this week in protest at their overtime rate of pay.
At present, DFB pays its employees 1.25 times the normal hourly rate for overtime worked. This compares with the time-and-a-half earned by firefighters in all other Irish full-time jurisdictions (with the exception of Louth, which has its own contracts and scale), and also with the 1.5 times hourly rate available to other Dublin City Council (DCC) workers.
The news comes amid reports that a number of DFB fire engines were ruled as being out of service on two separate occasions last week due to the unavailability of the overtime labour needed to staff them.
The unofficial stoppages this week happened on Monday and Tuesday, are set to continue today, and will conclude on Friday (Thursday is being exempted so as to prevent a situation where one watch is penalised twice for missing two days’ worth of overtime).
However, the stoppages are only occurring during day-shifts, as opposed to non-regular hours where overtime becomes of even more importance.
Yesterday, 30 operational positions on DFB fire engines were not filled – six officers and 24 firefighters – which saw the service run about 20% below minimum safety numbers. Meanwhile, an engine at Donnybrook Fire Station was taken out of service and its crew sent to other stations to shore up numbers.
“It’s happening across the board and seems to be well-supported,” a source told TheJournal.ie. “There is wariness as it’s not an official action, but yesterday and today the support has been 100%.”
“Under the current regime Dublin Fire Brigade personnel are not disadvantaged in any way in the calculation and payment of overtime,” a DFB spokesperson told TheJournal.ie when asked for comment on the matter.
The issue of payment of overtime at time-and-a-half to Dublin Fire Brigade personnel has been raised by the trade unions with management in Dublin City Council and this will be dealt with under normal industrial relations talks in due course.
Dublin Fire Brigade in common with all other public services operates within allocated budgets. The service maximises and efficiently utilises resources to ensure the continuous provision of fire, emergency ambulance and rescue services. At all times the safety of both staff and the community is paramount
Overtime is voluntary within Dublin Fire Brigade, but it appears that it has become something of a necessity in recent years in order to meet standards of service.
At present DFB employs roughly 900 people across six Districts, with 12 full-time stations and two part-time stations.
“I do overtime because I have to make ends meet,” one worker who’s participating in the action told us. “We’re being paid less than less well-trained workers in other places.
It is voluntary, but the fact of the matter is DFB needs us to do it to cover the service, and it’s also the case that we need to do it. But then you have to make it worth people’s while. 24 hours extra a week will cause people to burn out. They should be paid properly.
We feel really isolated at present. We’re the benchmark for pay for the rest of the country, yet they’re getting paid more than we are. It’s not right.
Dublin Fire Brigade / Twitter3 fire engines from Tallaght & Dolphins Barn stns are dealing with a field/trees fire in Rathcoole #Dublin #fire pic.twitter.com/DPfEmW4U1d
— Dublin Fire Brigade (@DubFireBrigade) July 24, 2017
A number of sources within DFB itself have described the service as being the “best-trained” such division in Ireland, yet firefighters and paramedics working there earn less overtime than those employed elsewhere.
“We have paramedics and advanced medical staff, no other fire service in Ireland has that, and many in the UK and Europe don’t either,” one source said.
Escalation of the action is expected to be announced on Friday evening, with overtime strikes planned for an additional four weeks.
Exempt
“Yesterday Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said ‘there should be equal pay for equal work and equal experience’ – over the RTÉ pay row,” said Ros MacCobb, spokesperson for the Irish Fire and Emergency Services Association (IFESA) today.
But here in Dublin City Council you have one group of workers getting paid less than others in the Council when they work overtime. In Dublin Fire Brigade you have workers on overtime doing more work than other full-time firefighters around the country and getting paid less. That’s grossly unfair.
“This isn’t union-driven, it’s the firefighters on the ground who are looking for this,” MacCobb told TheJournal.ie.
It seems to be a human resources policy within Dublin City Council – a circular on the subject of overtime last year said that firefighters are exempt from a return to pre-austerity levels of time-and-a-half overtime.
But all other fighters in other areas are back to their previous rates because their local authorities have made the decision to ease the pain, as it were.
The unofficial nature of the stoppage is borne out by a Siptu spokesperson, who said they were “unaware” of the action.
MacCobb believes the denial of time-and-a-half to firefighters on DFB is “to save money”. “When there was an embargo on hiring staff during the austerity years DFB was exempt because staff levels had to be kept above a minimum level,” he says.
But there are two issues – the fact overtime payments for Dublin firefighters are less, and the point that these guys are doing too much overtime – normal services are now reliant on guys working overtime – and that’s not sustainable.
“A service shouldn’t be reliant on overtime for basic numbers. Between that and the overtime – they’re false economies. We’re told it’s in line with DFB policy, but we’ve looked for that policy under freedom of information and been told there isn’t one.”
MacCobb likewise says coupled with the “discontent” with the lower rate of overtime is a general unhappiness in the fire service with the funding of equipment.
DFB recently bought four second-hand turntable ladder engines retired from service in the UK with “crew cabs that only fit two members, when the service here operates with crews of three”, according to MacCobb.
“They’re over 15 years old already and were deemed not fit for purpose in another country. The age of the fleet is an issue – some of the machines are getting on to 20 years old,” he says (pictures of the various appliances in use by DFB can be seen here).
The service is driving around in some trucks that date from 1997 – and they’re well-worn – there’s less wear and tear down the country maybe, but in Dublin some of them are on their last legs.
You’ll see ambulances with 500km on the clock that are still operational, and the truth is they shouldn’t be.
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Should just recruit a few more and end overtime, nothing but greed.
@Paul: they are under strength and are looking for their employer to recruit more fire fighters to fill the vacancies. The Overtime is voluntarily and it’s it compulsory to make themselves available so it’s not a strike.
Why shouldn’t they receive the same overtime rate as the rest of the fire services in the country or at least the same as their fellow DCC staff.
@AlanH -AFC: (not compulsory to make them availabe)
Thanks for your valuable input Paul.. Very Insightful !! Now Leo needs a cup of tea, and his feet rubbed.. so off u pop like a good lad !!.
@AlanH -AFC: not everybody doing the same job gets the same pay.
@AlanH -AFC: would it not be cheaper to just cut everybody else to the same rates as Dublin? If al they are seeking is parity, then job done
@Paul: DFB firefighters and paramedics, who are highly trained and save people’s lives daily, are greedy to request the same overtime rate as other DCC workers who are as not as highly trained or save lives. You. Are. A. Genius.
@Paul: you come across as an awful human being.
@AlanH -AFC:
Is overtime compulsory?
@Paul: Gøbshite
@Paul: Of course they should recruit more staff, but its the same in the HSE, totally dependent on overtime and agency at huge extra cost. It’s not the fault of the front line worker than overtime is required, but when it is it should be paid at 50% extra.
You may call it greed, I would call it a fair return to work your day off. Now €66 billion to bankers and bondholders, that what I would call greed, robbery, extortion, criminality
and ripping of a nation.
Very simplistic viewpoint Paul. Will be hard to recruit anybody for the service if you saw what the starting salary is for the job nowadays. It is one of the reasons more recent recruits take on the overtime to begin with.
@Sinéad Davitt: yeah maybe so but this just shows we need to lower social welfare and get rid of the perks that staying on it brings.
@Sinéad Davitt: Is the salary a secret til they get their first pay packet?
@Dermot Foley: With half of it is gone in tax, USC, pension levies, superannuation, PRSI its no longer a secret, its a total shock.
It’s not really a pay rise their looking for, its about being asked to do much extra for little more, just so someone in some department can tick an embargo box.. They are expected to cover the unfilled positions for less than the standard overtime elsewhere. Under-recruitment is costing our economy jobs without saving us money because the fires and crashes will have to be dealt with by someone anyway.
@Greg Blake: 100% agree. Overtime is and should always be 1.5x min. This needs fixing now.
@Bunny Johnson: sorry meant to add that overtime should be the exception not the norm. This is bad management somewhere in the hierarchy.
absolutely should be paid the same as their counterparts in other regions – I don’t know why they aren’t though.
Why did the DFB guy state that they were not “… disadvantaged in any way in the calculation and payment of overtime” yet are not paid time and a half?
Eitherway – when overtime become that regular you need to hire more full time staff. Same goes for guards, prison officers, airport police etc.
Ffs who’s going to douse the Dubs now when they catch fire under that flag on the hill ?
Was in Australia. A lot of the firefighters are volunteers on call. When the need arises they get called in. Very few firefighters in the station on a fulltime basis.
@rockmast: i don’t get your point. There’s lots of retained fire services in Ireland too.
Fair play to them. HSE dependent on overtime and hanlddington road hours. Unions next to useless, but all being paid nicely.
better flat wage and not be depending on over time to live .If ever anyone deserves a proper wage it is our fire crews.On a daily basis they put their lives on the line day in day out there is money for everything else
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