Nelson’s professional firefighters say they felt “disgusting” downing their tools and leaving their station for an hour during the nationwide strike on Friday.
New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union Nelson representative Sam White says bargaining has been ongoing for more than a year and Fire and Emergency NZ had now reneged on things they had agreed to in principle in the last round of bargaining.
Being the only paid brigade north of Christchurch, Nelson station’s biggest issue is equipment, but nationally understaffing was high up the list.
“We all feel disgusting, nobody wants to do this, all we need is for FENZ to table the offer they say they have for us.”
Sam says more than a year ago, their main Nelson truck broke down, and they still don’t have a replacement. He says the lifespan of a fire appliance is around 20 years, Nelson’s are now 27 and 35 years old.
“The replacement we have is our 27 year old truck that is meant to be a back row truck. A fire truck gets started and driven hard, the revs are high with the hoses pumping, it’s not a normal truck and you can’t warm it up.”
He claims FENZ is also trying to relocate Nelson’s 17m Bronto ladder truck to a busier station elsewhere in the country, but Sam says it’s the only one in the Top of the South with that reach ability.
“It has a 17 metre reach for firefighting and pumps 4500 litres of water a minute, but we also use it to affect rescues.
“In the floods, St John needed to get people out of houses. We’ve taken people off boats and cliffs, it gets used for all sorts of different things. They want to take it away and replace it with something else from somewhere else around the country. It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
While he says, in Nelson, they’re in pretty good shape, the 42 Nelson career firefighters and five blackwatch members stood with their colleagues up and down the country to leave work between 12 and 1pm on Friday.
“We understand that it is bigger than us. FENZ doesn’t want people knowing how bad it is.”
Sam says they are also fighting for better cancer research.
“We have no cover unless we can prove exactly what job we got cancer from.”
A seemingly impossible task.
“It takes months, not only does someone find out they have cancer, they have to go through every job, and try and prove which one caused it. FENZ don’t want to take liability and we’ve pushed for cancer testing.”
Sam says they get a $250 allowance a year for such testing.
“It’s been three years and I’m still trying to find someone who can do the testing for that price.”
Sam, along with many others, doesn’t have health insurance, because coverage for the profession is “too expensive”.
“We don’t get coverage on the frontline, but the guys sitting in the offices have all got health insurance.”
He says, while he wouldn’t want to be at the head of the organisation pinching the pennies, they need to find a way forward.
For each position on a truck there are currently 4.5 staff to cover four watches over a 24 hour period.
Sam says the working party from FENZ and NZPFU agreed in principle that that would increase to 5.19 staff.
Recruitment drives were supposed to increase from four times a year to six to achieve the goal, but instead January’s drive has been cancelled, leaving them with just three recruitments next year.
