Pendle battle to keep firefighters (From Craven Herald)

Pendle battle to keep firefighters

11:30am Thursday 26th March 2009 in

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Pendle Council will debate the threat to retained firefighters in the borough at its next full council meeting.

Liberal Democrat councillors are proposing a resolution which calls on Euro MPs and the UK government to keep current arrangements and avoid a ‘devastating impact on the fire service’.

The EU Parliament has voted against there being any exception to the Working Time Directive, which requires employers to ensure that workers do not work more than 48 hours a week.

Retained firefighters are those already in employment who serve a period of ‘on call’ time during which they can respond to incidents at the drop of a hat.

However, a majority in the EU Parliament wants all ‘on-call’ time to be counted as working time for the purpose of the directive.

“The threat from the Working Time Directive could close Barnoldswick’s and Earby’s fire stations by making the retained system unworkable,” said Councillor David Whipp. “Our resolution aims to put maximum pressure on the decision takers to keep the status quo.

“There’s a lot of negotiation to take place but, as things stand, retained firefighters could be limited to just a handful of hours each week when they could be on ‘stand by’. This would wreck the retained system altogether.”

Under the current rules, John Taylor, a spokesman for the Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service, explained that retained firefighters could potentially be on call for up to 120 hours per week.

But in reality, retained firefighters in small communities might only work for three or four hours per week.

“It’s a proposal designed to prevent the exploitation of workers,” said Mr Taylor. “But if you talk to retained firefighters they don’t feel exploited.”

He said that Lancashire had a total of 403 retained firefighters and 900 full-time firefighters who work 37-hour weeks.

“Almost one-third of our firefighters are retained, and the large area lends itself to the employment of retained firefighters,” said Coun Whipp.

“The Working Time Directive could destroy the whole basis on provision of retained firefighters.”

Mr Taylor said: “It would effectively get rid of the retained firefighter system. We would have to employ more full-time firefighters which would mean more cost to the taxpayer.”

However, he said that because there is a lot of opposition to the European Parliament vote, it could be a long time before a new system took effect which would allow amendments to be made.