Fire and water staff strike again
Local authority ‘extremely concerned’ at situation
The return to industrial action by retained firefighters and water services staff in Tipperary has sparked concern over impact on services.
Retained firefighters went on strike last June in a dispute over pay and conditions. The action was resumed last Friday after SIPTU members voted by an overwhelming majority to reject a Labour Court recommendation to increase their retainer by between 24% and 32.7%.
While firefighters will respond to life-threatening emergency calls, 50% of fire stations are being closed on a rotational basis. In a statement, local authority management said it is “extremely concerned” by the move.
“This unprecedented action represents a significant increase in risk to the safety of the public and to the safety of firefighters and is totally disproportionate. While there are acknowledged challenges in relation to retained firefighter recruitment and retention, and the sustainability of service, a clear pathway and plan have been developed to address these issues.”
Firefighters have been calling for improved working conditions as well as pay. The Labour Court has recommended that the size of the retained service be increased by 400 additional firefighters so as to address staff shortages. Among other recommendations are new policies on sick leave, maternity leave and parental leave.
Local authority management said it has addressed structured time off for retained firefighters by reducing the obligation for response to alerts (from 75% to 45%), with no reduction in retainer, despite the reduction in availability. Further negotiation on pay would be possible through national pay talks due to commence in the coming weeks.
“It is simply not within the power of local authorities to provide any pay increase outside of the national pay agreement and we are calling on SIPTU to recognise this and call off unconstructive and unnecessary industrial action, which has a significant impact on public safety,” management stated.
The public was advised to continue to call 999/112 in the event of an emergency.
WATER SERVICE ACTION
Meanwhile, water service employee trade union Unite announced a national three-day industrial action from Wednesday to Friday, August 2 to 4. Local authority water staff were to withdraw their labour for these three days in a row over the ongoing transformation of water services to Uisce Éireann.
Water staff have also raised concerns over pay, terms and conditions, as well as a guarantee to retain their public status as water workers. They have also sought a referendum on public water provision and ownership.
Like the retained firefighters, local authority water service staff staged industrial action earlier in the summer.
In a statement this week, Tipperary Co Council said “an industrial action of this scale and nature will certainly have significant impacts on water consumers, both the public and commercial customers. There will be a high potential for water outages across certain areas of the county over these three days and for some time afterwards. These water outages may involve a reduction or loss of supply.”
The council anticipated that the southern half of the county was most likely to be affected by the industrial action. It was not expected that wastewater treatment would be impacted.
While still hopeful that the planned industrial action could be averted, Tipperary Co Council urged all water consumers to follow the advice provided in the precautionary Boil Water Notices and to conserve the use of water as much as possible. Full details of the areas impacted by the boil notices are on www.water.ie and updates as they occur for all counties will be issued locally through media and on the council’s website.