Source: Radio New Zealand
PSA National Secretary Fleur Fitzsimons. RNZ
Two unions are challenging the proposed restructure of Fire and Emergency at the Employment Relations Authority in Wellington.
FENZ is proposing to cut scores of non-firefighting jobs and make changes to hundreds of other roles while saving millions of dollars.
The Professional Firefighters’ Union and the PSA said they would argue at the ERA on Thursday they were not consulted properly.
FENZ had dumped a 265-page proposal on workers last November with just 10 days to respond, PSA National Secretary Fleur Fitzsimons said.
“You can’t consult on a near-completed plan full of errors that was prepared in a process from which you completely excluded the very people the law requires you to involve,” she said in a statement.
Earlier, after union protests FENZ extended the time for feedback and delayed finalisation of the proposal from mid-December to late January.
The firefighters’ union said the restructure was “hatched secretly by a very select few, almost all with no operational experience, deliberately refusing to involve those that do the work”.
FENZ would be at Thursday’s hearing and looked forward to a productive conversation about the interpretation of the consultation clause in its collective employment agreements.
“We will continue to engage with the unions and associations through the process,” chief executive Kerry Gregory said in a statement.
The changes were aimed at enabling FENZ to respond to a rapidly changing operating environment as well as “respond to known and unknown cost pressures without asking levy-payers for more money”, he said.
“Our dedicated team does incredible work looking after New Zealand’s communities and this proposal is focused on ensuring we can continue doing that.”
The unions estimate the changes would cut 97 roles and “significantly” change 66 others, “impacting critical emergency response capability across the country”.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
