Mt Gambier MFS going full time

[medevac]

^^ATH
i dont wuite have any idea what your talking about...

[F.B.R.T]

Well, here we go, these are my views as a member of the Mount Gambier retained crew interested in changing to full-time!

First of all, many of us that are looking at changing from retained (permanent part time) to a fulltime position have been with the service for many years (13 in my case)

Looking at it from my point of view, if you are doing the job now 24/7 successfully with all the necessary training qualifications and real on the job experience, and all that is changing is that you would start a day shift at 0730 and finish at 1700 hrs then why shouldn't our local retained crews be allowed to transfer directly over to fulltime positions in our own station.

It is now a common occurrence that other government and private industries will allow permanent part time employees to change to full time positions with little or no change, so why the difference here!

All our crew are asking for is really a fair go........
Not too much to ask for really, after all the hard work and dedication that our crews put into the station to serve our community faithfully!!

Regards, Mat

[rescue5271]

Mat, I would have to agree with you 100% you guys should have the first right at the jobs for a number of reason's but I would say that as its a government job you would still have to apply for the postion. i know you guys all have been and completed all the courses and that should go in your favor,but I would say that more than likely that the union are having there say about what should be done... keep in mind that MFS would not have the man power to do this day shift with the staff that they have(full time) guys as there are short crews in some MFS stations..

You guys should have the right and its a pitty that you don't have the UFU on your side or do you

[Robert-Robert34]

Also to add to that rescue5271 it wouldn't harm to put some CFS Volunteers who have CABA,RCR,HAZCHEM & MR Truck Licence at stations where the MFS have difficulty in getting day crews 

Senior Firery70 has every reason to express his views as well as demand to be switched from part time to full time MFS Fire Fighter cause he has 13 years of service with the Metropolitan Fire Service under his belt giving him and fellow part time firies at that station first preference

[F.B.R.T]

In reply to rescue 5271 regarding UFU support,I and many others in our retained crew are paying members, but the "jury is still undecided" whether they support us fully.

I would like to believe they do! but I'm still skeptical.......

Further info to my post is that from what we understand, the retained crew will still get turned out to calls during the day when the full time dayshift are working to back them up, so I cannot see any reduction in the work load or call numbers attended of the retained crew.

The issues of fatigue alone, that contributed to full time staffing being considered in this high call station, have still not been resolved with this day staffing model.

Regards, Mat

[oz fire]

So why would full timers in Mt Gambier have to come from Adelaide?? The firefighters there now are doing the job fine and have been for a number of years. Full timers are not going to do the job any better, just get there quicker, doesn't matter whether they have done the drill squad or not. The reason MFS probably doesn't recognise CFS service during recruiting of full timers is you may have been in brigade X for 10 years and never been to a structure fire. so where is your experience??

ath - your right a CFS member may have been in a brigade for 10 years and not participated in a going structure fire - and how is that different from an MFS retainee in Country Command - there are many MFS Country Command stations who do less than 100 calls a year, as there are CFS stations - odds are they too may not have attended a going structure fire.
I personally know a number of career MFS staff and career staff in other fire services who have not actively participated in a going structure fire for many years - purely due to shift rotation and never knowing what your going to get ..... generalising on CFS is a very short straw!

Also - why should Mt Gambier be any different from Port Pirie?

[rescue5271]

What is the point at all of making the MOUNT full time when the retain guys still have to turn out with the second appliances??? They are a busy brigade so if your going to do the job right do it the first time,but give the guys who are already there the chance at the positions first. The mfs could also look at opening a satelite station in the mount just for the retain guys should it be needed,it should be noted that any cfs help to the mfs is only by 34 units and not any pumper or 24/34p's.....And they do support them alot.

[TillerMan]

What says they won't have 2 paid crews at Mt Gambier?

[F.B.R.T]

The only information that we know about is what has been officially released in the media, and it was that there would one fulltime crew for one appliance for a day shift (0800-1700 hrs?) with retained backup.

All Weekends and 1700-0800 hrs? weekdays would be retained crew.

So still quite different from Pt. Pirie which has fulltime crews 24/7 for one appliance with retained backup.

Still doesn't come close to solving retained crew fatigue levels!

Regards, Mat

[Alan (Big Al)]

In some Tasmanian stations i believe during the day a career (fulltime) crew man the appliance(s) and then after hours the volunteer crew handles all the calls i believe it works there pretty good.

[F.B.R.T]

I visited down to Tasmania 12 months ago and the interesting thing is that there is only one fire service and it is known as the Tasmanian Fire Service.

One station I visited had fulltime crewing 24/7 with retained AND volunteer backup and was told that this system seemed to work well!

They seemed to have pretty good gear too!

[rescue5271]

There are alot of good systems CFA have both paid and volunteers in some the of the main brigades and they work well. sure there where some problems at first but it worked. At Portland they have 3 paid staff and they are backed up with a full volunteer crew during the day,at nite the volunteers run the show with a full set of volunteer officers(capt/LT) so it does work but they do know where near as many calls at the guys in the mount...

[Alan (Big Al)]

I believe the busiest completely volunteer station in Australia is a place in Victoria (Can't remember the name when i need it most ) and they do 650-700 jobs a year.

[24P]

Maybe Melton CFA? On the highway west of Melbourne

[Robert-Robert34]

I can remember going to Riddles Creek several years ago with my parents to spend easter with my dad's little brother this is when my dog was a little puppy... on easter morning i slipped out while my cousins were still a sleep and walked down to the Riddles Creek CFA station

Boy was i impressed not only was the station large but it also had 3 fire appliance kinda like Mount Gambier does and plus the crew there were very kind & friendly in sharing their hot cross buns with me a fledging young CFS cadet at the time & my puppy

I know that i've gone completely off topic here but to tell you the truth before i visited Riddles Creek i was under the impression that one of the Major CFA stations that has paid staff were covering that particular town

[Alan (Big Al)]

Just curious Senior Firey 70 how does the retainer system work, payment wise that is??? You get your retainer and then for calls do they pay you for the exact time you spend at the station???
Being at a busy station do you or could you make a decent living or do you need to work another full/part time job???

[fireygal]

We get paid a retainer as well as hourly rate when we attend jobs. It is a minimum call in period of 1 hour even if the job only takes 20 minutes.
Even though we do 500 calls a year (Mt Gambier) pretty much everyone has another job to survive on. As most jobs are only the hour so you cant really survive on say $10k a year.

[Alan (Big Al)]

Cheers for that.

[F.B.R.T]

Further to Firerygal's comments, we supposedly don't really get a true retainer but are paid for three hours per week (for training and cleaning) with firecalls the extra amount on top.

You definitely couldn't live off it as an only source of income.

It does however, help some of us (myself included) to offset lost pay when away from my primary work.

The volunteer time that the crew put in is still enormous, which I must say that, no one I know of at our station would be "doing it for the money"

I hope the last couple of posts shed some light on our situation.

Cheers, Mat

[Alan (Big Al)]

Thanks for that Mat, definatly does shed some light on it.  I thought being in such a busy station you would get more than what you do but i guess thats the way the cookie crumbles.  Would definatly be a good second income for a family.

Also do you have to be available for every call or if your tied up at normal work and you can't go then it's tough luck, or if the pager goes then it's the first priority???

[Scania_1]

No you dont have to go to every call. If you are at work and cant get away so be it. We have a book where we can sign off for certain hours if we are unavailable. There is a bench mark that you must attend 50% of all jobs. Also to ride the appliance to 50% of those. Hope this helps.

cheers

[F.B.R.T]

What "Ath" points out is correct.

We have a more formalized approach to who is on duty and who isn't rather than seeing who turns up at the time!

I think to a certain degree, it boils down to because they pay us they expect more from us.

Supposably, it might make us more accountable for our actions!

Even though we are paid, we still struggle like any other service to keep crews due to the amount of calls and hence interuption to your normal life!

Until next time, cheers,hope to talk again soon!
Mat

[pumprescue]

I see what your saying Mat, the thing that confuses me is a lot of retained station have 6min plus turnout times and only manage to muster one engine out the door with Murray Bridge MFS defaulting to CFS the other day for an alarm. I know there is talk of Mt Barker going to MFS in the future and the reason they would never go retained is it wouldnt make any difference, with the current CFS volly roster system at Mt Barker they can turn out 2 trucks within 5mins any time of the day most days. If you made them retained only difference would be the $ and engines.

[F.B.R.T]

Yeh, having busy stations retained isn't necessarily the answer.
But trying to come up with a good answer to suit all can cause problems within itself.
If the system at Mt. Barker works, then leave it!

I think we have been very lucky with the dedication of some within our station, as we still get an appliance out the door under 5 minutes and followed by a second appliance maybe 1 minute after.

Regarding fire alarm response, I notice a few groups complain about having to respond to these, but the way I see it is, you have to do the more mundane thing occasionaly (I love PRIVATE fire alarms...NOT!!) and take the good with the bad.

After all, that fire alarm, could be a going fire!

Cheers, Mat

[Alan (Big Al)]

Tell me about it you should have seen the look on our members faces when we were called to an alarm at the local servo and i'm telling them it's a going job, they certainly moved alot quicker then .

I'm quite surprised that Gawler is a full time staion they only do 350-450 calls a year and were only doing 140-170 5 years ago, but i guess there would be reasons why they are full time.