Blazing row over Manchester firefighters' shifts
The Manchester fire services faces anger from the union over new working hours.
The Greater Manchester Service is defending imposing new shift patterns on firefighters in the light of more budget cuts.
The Fire Brigades Union said it was astonished'' at plans to change working conditions for 1,200 firefighters and said the proposed new arrangements mean that one in five posts will be cut, with the rest having worse conditions imposed on them, while firefighters would hardly see their families under the new 12-hour shift arrangements. The union's Manchester spokesman Gary Keary said:To start the process for dismissing firefighters to then simply re-engage them on an un-negotiated contract is really appalling, and a serious breach of the agreed mechanisms for industrial relations in the UK fire and rescue service.
We will do everything we can to resolve what could turn into a bitter and damaging dispute. This is the third change to shift systems in Greater Manchester since 2006 - surely firefighters are entitled to some sort of stability in their working lives.''
The authority said it had no intention to make anyone redundant but was introducing new shifts next April under moves to save money amid Government funding cuts.
Councillor David Acton, chairman of Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Authority, said: Government cuts of #28 million over the last six years have meant a reduction of over 400 firefighters from the frontline in Greater Manchester as well as significant back office cuts.
The authority faces a further Government budget cut of #14.4 million over the next four years. The scale of these Government cuts has left us with no alternative and no change is not an option.
Our ultimate aim is simple - to ensure as many fire engines as possible are available when we have the most incidents and are able to get to people as quickly as we can.
To achieve this we are already taking a third of the cuts from senior management and the back office, but we have developed a new shift duty system for firefighters which changes from a day shift of 10 and a half hours and a night shift of 13 and a half hours to two equal shifts of 12 hours.
This system saves almost #10 million whilst retaining 32 more firefighter jobs on the frontline than would be possible by trying to maintain our current system, providing up to 56 fire engines to our communities when they need them the most.''
PL