Dunedin firefighters joined a one-hour national strike today, saying the action was a "last resort" to get Fire and Emergency NZ to listen to their concerns about work conditions and pay.
In August, the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) started nationwide industrial action after negotiations for a collective agreement with Fenz failed.
The talks centred on health and safety concerns, ageing equipment, staffing numbers and pay.
He said he was really pleased with the turnout as all on-duty crews went on strike, supported by off duty crews as well as other unions.
"It's great to have that public support. There seems to be a lot of feeling across all our support services at the moment - teachers, nurses and doctors and all sorts that things aren't tracking quite the way that they should be.
"So yeah, we'll be seeing more of this, I think."
"We've got fleet that regularly break down on their way to emergencies, we've got a big gap in our training for our firefighters ... we're also fighting for pay and conditions.
"This is a last resort for our firefighters - we don't want to be here. Our firefighters understand the risk involved. But Fenz are putting the public at risk every day of the year by not giving us resources we need to perform our job safely."
The action comes after Fenz made an offer in June (5.1% over three years), which was declined.
The union said members had not had a pay increase since July 2023.
In a statement this afternoon Fenz said it received calls for 18 incidents between noon and 1pm today, of which 10 were in areas impacted by the strike.
"Three of these incidents were motor vehicle crashes. The remaining incidents related to building alarms, which Fire and Emergency was alerted to through building alarm systems or 111 calls. None of these were confirmed fires.
"Our volunteers responded as normal to incidents within their brigade areas."
Deputy National Commander Megan Stiffler said she thanked New Zealanders for their extra care during the strike hour.
"Thank you to our more than 11,000 volunteers across the country, and their employers for supporting them to respond over today’s strike hour.
"I would also like to thank our Operational Commanders and Communication Centre Managers, who contributed to the response.
"We are disappointed that the NZPFU has issued a further strike notice for another one-hour strike at 12pm on 31 October.
"I urge the NZPFU to withdraw this latest strike notice and not issue any more, so we can get back around the bargaining table while we wait for our application for facilitation to be considered."
- ODT Online
