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RETAINED FIREFIGHTERS ARE to resume strike action next week after an “overwhelming majority” rejected proposed Labour Court recommendations.
The Retained Fire Service is a 2,000 strong part-time workforce that provides fire and first responder emergency services across the country.
Siptu members employed as Retained Fire Services firefighters have been engaged in industrial action in recent weeks due to what the trade union describes as a “staffing crisis which threatens this vital community resource”.
It said that many firefighters are unable to take their leave entitlements due to staff shortages and that members have seen their incomes drastically reduced due to reductions in call-outs over the last number of years.
However, the trade union last week said it was “disappointed” with the recommendations made by the Labour Court and that they anticipated members would reject the document in a ballot.
It was confirmed this morning that 82% of Siptu firefighters rejected the Labour Court recommendations.
As a result, the suspension on strike action will now be lifted and the strike will commence at every fire station from Wednesday, 26 July.
On 10 July, the Labour Court made ten recommendations in relation to the dispute.
It recommended that staff at retained stations be increased to 12, allowing a crew of six to be rostered on while an alternate crew of six is rostered off.
This would see an increase of around 400 staff and reduce the liability of each firefighter to respond to alerts from 75% of all alerts to 45% of alerts “without reduction or negative effect on the value of the Retainer payment”, the recommendation reads.
The Labour Court also recommended that the retainer be increased by between 24.1% and 32.7%. This would mean a firefighter on an annual retainer of €8,870 would see it increase to €11,769 from 1 October.
Speaking after these proposals were announced, Siptu’s Karan O’Loughlin said there was nothing in the recommendations to deal with “the precarious nature of the firefighters’ earnings with the retainer, drill and training still the only guaranteed pay”.
She anticipated that the recommendations would be “overwhelmingly rejected” and that there would be a return to strike action.
In a statement this morning, O’Loughlin said: “Stations all over the country are short staffed with dangerously low levels of crewing on call out.
“The increases in the modest retainer given to these essential workers may look like something on a percentage basis but, in reality, they are a high percentage of a small amount and will do nothing to attract the numbers of firefighters that are required to address the issues.”
O’Loughlin also said that the proposals were “inadequate as people are retiring on a mandatory basis or just leaving because the job is traumatic and stressful and not worth it because of the high levels of commitment and availability that are required”.
“These problems are exacerbated by the fact that most of the income earned is precarious and not guaranteed,” she added.
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If the British side break the protocol to suit a few hardline unionists in the north then I hope the eu come down hard on them for breaking an international trade agreement and they are punished by extra tariffs.johnson,Cummings and frost will bring Britain back to the stone age
@speedy: Yes agree and their US trade deal is then history.
@speedy: if they eliminate checks etc the UK will just become a back door to the EU. No way EU could agree to it. If UK want frictionless trade with the EU, you need to be in the EU. Johnson and his crew are just playing for the UK press… The big bad EU…. Actually it’s the petulant arrogant UK… But facts don’t matter to them.
@Mark H: They don’t even have to be in the EU, just be part of the customs union, which was on offer to them while negotiating. Remember the Norway style deal that was talked of… yeah.
@Mark H:
To use a Wembley analogy, they’re trying to get in for free!
@Diarmuid Hunt: Or agree to have a mechanism where the standards will be the same or equivalent. Not the “let’s pretend that our standards are equivalent, even though we might deviate from EU standards”
@speedy: you forgot Lord Rees of the Moggs.
@speedy: Cummings?
@Mark H: When have the facts ever mattered to any British Government.
wow is this for real .. how can any country any foreign trade minister sign an agreement with Great Britain in the knowledge that they will sign it and then change it to suit themselves, seriously who do these people think they are
The uk starting to dictate to EU but I think they are wasting their time as the protocol is what they signed up for and the DUP campaigned hard for brexit
An “honesty box” ? Yeah, that should work out well.
@Fr. Fintan Stack: Ha, yeah I laughed out loud at that part. What could possibly go wrong?!
After years of waiting for the UK to reveal its frictionless technological solution to eliminate customs checks for goods entering Northern Ireland, we are presented with the honesty box!
Breaking the protocol and putting the Good Friday agreement in danger will do them no favors on Capitol Hill .
The tories should have been honest in the very beginning with the electorate
@Hugh Mc Donnell: Tories honest…. That shouldn’t be in the one sentence
@Niall Lee: it’s called an oxymoron
They used to say “The sun never sets on the empire” I think that’s because even God wouldn’t trust them in the dark.
@Francis Devenney: or it’s because it never rose in the first place (still in the dark ages)
The Brits are at it again.
@Handsome McWonderful: Evidence in support:
If Brexit has taught us anything, it is that the UK can’t be trusted to tell the truth.
So the only way to make the protocol work is to ignore it and the agreement they signed up to.
You’d swear they didn’t help write the thing with the way they’re carrying on
Honestly I think it’s just time to take a hard line with Britain, they haven’t approached negotiations in good faith since the outset and seem to think every agreement and promise they’ve made in the past can be broken as they please.
A tinpot country run by a despot would have more integrity and competence than this lot. Only option now for the EU is hard retaliatory punitive tariffs which will paint these delinquants as the victims for ignoring the deal they made an international law treaty. This statement will be the malicious falsehood that they ever intended to honour or implement the protocol. England / UK is sinking down the toilet under that joke Johnson.
Really! An honesty box!? I wouldn’t trust the Brits as far as I could throw them!!! What a laugh…
Oh hahaha let’s sign an honesty box with all the cocaine producing countries too!
The NIP was a concession made to the UK by the EU. The UK made the argument that they would implement the checks when they formulated the agreement. All the EU has asked for is that the UK comply with their side of the agreement.
Today it was stated in the UK parliament that UK suppliers are deciding not to export goods into NI because of the hassle of complying they can’t be bothered to do the necessary paperwork.
NI are in a unique position that the protocol allows them to export goods into the EU and also into the UK without restrictions. Most UK companies would give their right arm to be able to do the same.
So, where does the problem seem to be…… The DUP.
They need to realise this is not like one of Boris’ revolving marriages – negotiated it, signed up for it – stuck with it -
Global warming, pandemic, age of online misinformation, asymmetric warfare, ransomware, rise of far-right…..and the English; was it ever thus!
UK should need to consult the dictionary to study the meaning of “honesty “ and then try and understand why other EU countries do not trust them in particular when Johnson is in charge.
Wish someone would just tell them to feck off
@David Lynch: we did, they only got three quarters of the message
More of the same BS. How long did it take the UK to “negotiate” Brexit?
Unbelievable arrogance!
Any nation thinking of doing a trade deal with the UK (under this current government) should think hard and tread cautiously – better still – save yourselves a massive headache – just don’t do it.
U.K attempting to move the goalposts while the match is being played
An ‘Honesty Box’…operated by the Tories? Hahahaha
Oven Ready
Oven ready turkey
I wonder where ‘On the right side’ is? Poor dear.
@Bill Spill: I hope he has realised that there is no point posting anymore, bar the odd you know who, nobody agrees with him, just laugh at him.
Who the fook do they think they are ……
Four years hundreds of thousands of wasted money and time !!M
It’s time to collapse the agreement & go to WTO
@Joe Thorpe: how could anyone trust them in any agreement their goose is well and truly cooked
What a shower of eejits.
The brits made a nuts of the negotiations and now they want to change it
borderless ireland because of the good Friday agreement. So stick a border in the northern part of the Irish Sea – drive a wedge between mainland uk and it’s sovereign country Northern Ireland to protect the good Friday agreement. Oh hold on that can’t be right can it? Guess it is …. Whilst everyone in Europe rejoices at getting one over on the uk the good Friday agreement will unravel. But not because of the uk. If I was frost I’d tell Northern Ireland we tried our best leave matters as they are and wait for the fun and games to start.
@Nigel Barlow: how about the Britain and HMG gives back the country they stole and pillaged back to its rightful owners.
@Gary G: quite welcome to It
That’s Feck with a ‘eU’
What amazing is they continue to go this route after the G8 and the G20 meetings. Where they were clearly told by the rest of the world. Don’t even try and do this.
Irish hory indeed world history has so many examples of the British and “Honesty”.
Yet the expect everybody to agree with this.
An agreement they insisted upon and agreed to, now they have changed their mind because of their own red tape, which they insisted upon.
I expected them to pull some dirty tricks but nothing as simple minded as this.
The laughable part is they are saying they got great trade deals from other countries and so far every one of them is worse than the present EU deal.
The have not move the goalposts, they are trying to change the game and the rules as they go along. The rest of the world is sharpening their knives as the realise how weak the Uk government are.
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